Livestock species for urban conditions: the case of Haiti
This page describes briefly the trends and practices of pig husbandry in urban area and especially in and around Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Rationale
Goats, sheep, cows, horses, camels, chickens, buffaloes, pigeons and many other types of animals can be found in cities around the world. Each of these animals has its specific advantages and disadvantages. Particularly small animals are adaptable to backyard conditions, they require little capital to start with, it is easy to sell them and they reproduce fast. Aquaculture represents an interesting diversification of agriculture at the periphery of cities. In Abidjan (Côte d Ivoire), fish are fed rice bran and slaughterhouse residues or manure are used as fertilisers to produce feed. Tilapia culture in Southeast Asia is presently both spreading and intensifying. In Thailand, periurban enterprises use processing wastes and other inputs from cities.
Most pig breeders are small producers, with one or two sows, who raise the animals from birth to fattening prior to slaughtering. Usually they sell both suckling pigs (slaughtered or alive) to intermediaries, slaughterhouses or directly to consumers. Others are more specialised: some raise the animals from their birth until they are weaned and sell them to fatteners, either slaughtered or as suckling pigs. Still others only fatten the animals (up to 90-120 kg) until they are sold or slaughtered. In large scale commercial units it is common to keep pigs until they reach a specific standard weight; for subsistence and semi-commercial purposes the pigs tend to be slaughtered when the owners need money. Typical problems associated with pig keeping are the fear that they spread diseases, that particularly young piglets are driven over by cars, or that pigs cause noise and public nuisance. The typical way to cope with these issues is to provide housing, to reduce the number of pigs so as to make them survive and grow on local waste, and to keep them in a hygienic way. Crossbreeding is often done, but this tends to be useful only for the commercial growers since the resulting animals have generally a different body composition (for instance less fat) and flavour than what is liked locally.
Trends and practices of pig husbandry in and around Port-au-Prince, Haiti