THE Philippine Statistics Authority in Davao Region (PSA 11) reported a 15.36-percent decline in the inventory of all types of chicken in the region.
Based on PSA 11's latest Livestock and Poultry Situation Report, as of January 1 of this year, the chicken inventory in Davao Region decreased to 11.65 million birds from 13.77 million birds, across all types, in the previous year.
The number of broiler chickens went down 37 percent to only 2,899 chickens as of January 1 from 4,601 a year ago.
Layer chickens decreased by 13 percent to 1,320 chickens from 1,515 chickens in January of last year.
Native chickens, which make up the bulk of the chicken inventory in the region, slightly declined by 2.85 percent to 7,436 chickens from 7,654 chickens in January 2017.
In Davao Region, 63.80 percent of the chickens grown are native, 24.87 percent broiler, and only 11.33 percent are layers.
Meanwhile, in the same report from PSA, the inventory of ducks in the region as of January 1 went up to 540,000 from only 524,000 ducks in January 1, 2017.
Out of this number, 487,000 ducks are backyard-grown, or about 90.26 percent of the entire duck growing industry of the region.
Commercially-grown ducks in Davao Region comprised about 53,000, or about 9.74 percent only.
The same data revealed a 2.15 percent growth rate for the number of backyard ducks and 11.08 percent growth for commercially-grown ducks.
Egg production in Davao Region, both for ducks and chickens, have increased as well.
For the year 2017, chicken eggs produced in the region reached 26,407 metric tons (MT), a 3.58 percent increase from the 25,495 MT production in 2016.
Duck eggs production also went up by 4.70 percent to 1,248 metric tons in 2017 from only 1,192 MT in 2016.