Poultry is the largest group of livestock species in the world in which chickens largely dominate the fl ock composition. The poultry sector in Ethiopia can be characterized into three major production systems based on selected parameters like breed, fl ock size, housing, feeding, health, technology, biosecurity and others. These are large scale commercial, small scale commercial and village poultry production systems. The majority of chicken production systems remain as village production

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... consists of the indigenous breeds widely. Attempts have been made to introduce different exotic poultry breeds to small holder farming systems of Ethiopia to improve the existing low performance of indigenous chickens. The egg production potential of local chickens is between 30-60 eggs per year/hen with an average weight of 38g each under village management condition. However, exotic breeds produce around 250 eggs per year/hen each weighing around 60g in Ethiopia. Evidences indicate that all the imported breeds of chickens performed well under the intensive management system. However, the contribution of exotic chicken to the Ethiopian economy is still signifi cantly lower than that of other African countries due to dominance by village production systems. In general, poultry egg and meat production is the most environmentally effi cient animal protein production system. Therefore, feed shortage, disease and other critical gaps need to be fi lled by research institutions and development agencies to improve the productive performance of exotic chicken breeds in Ethiopia.