Economics and social characteristics of registered poultry egg producers in Ilorin, Kwara State

The paper analyzed the economics and social characteristics of registered poultry egg producers in Ilorin, Kwara State. Primary data was used for the study. The data was collected using structured questionnaires administered to 150 stratified sampled registered poultry egg producer. Both descriptive and gross margin analysis were employed to analyze the data. Socio-economic analyses revealed that 68.7% of the poultry egg farmers were males with a mean age of 40 years and 78% having tertiary education with a mean year of poultry experience of 7years. 76.7% were married with a mean family size of 4. Majority (53.3%) of the farmers were civil servant with a mean farm size of 334 number of birds and 50% of the farmers have been participating in cooperative society for over 6 to 10 years with majority (84.7%) having no extension contact. The gross margin calculated shows that the farms had an average margin of N3,652 per bird per year and the net average revenue of N3,024 per bird per year showing that poultry egg production is profitable. It was recommended that government should endeavour to subsidize inputs such as feed ingredients and this can be achieved through poultry farmer's participation in crop production.