The animals were put on a diet that reduced their food supply by 50%.
14ymedio, Madrid, 7 October 2024 — The hens of Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth) have had a disastrous summer, and with them the residents of the special municipality. Egg production is finally recovering after a few months of unmitigated collapse. From the 42,000 units a day that were regularly obtained until May, the number dropped to just 1,000. After that abyss, it can almost be described as a miracle that today they are obtaining some 22,000 a day, according to Frank Páez Martínez, director of the Poultry Base Business Unit (UEB).
The official gave all the details to the local official newspaper, Victoria , now that what he describes as a “slump” has been overcome and he can offer some good news, “a gradual recovery.” The inhabitants of Isla de la Juventud, who had 12 eggs in their ration book, saw their quota reduced by half, and that is in the best of cases, but the authorities are committed to gradually handing out six every 15 days.
The number is no small feat if one takes into account that in Havana the allocation is lower, five eggs per month, when they arrive at all. But the hens from Pinar del Río had shown themselves to be extraordinarily compliant in the midst of a resounding crisis in the sector at a national level. In May, according to Páez Martínez, total production rose to 1,140,000 units of the 1,104,000 planned, that is, 3% more than planned.
“In June we began to decline, many consumers did receive the dozen, while others barely received six”
“However, in June it began to decline; many consumers did receive the dozen, while others barely received six because there were no longer enough. The months went by because the production levels did not allow us to reach the usual figures,” describes the official, who attributes the bulk of the problem to “the difficulties” with the supply of feed.
The hens have had to face a radical diet, with a 50% reduction in feed. “It was a very difficult time because this feed shortage occurred repeatedly and made it impossible to stabilize the recovery we were achieving,” says the official.
And the “misfortune” did not come alone. Added to this was the inability to restore the animal population. “162,000 animals were supposed to arrive on the Island and we have only brought 20,000; these young birds were going to achieve better production and today they are not here, so we continue working with older hens,” laments Páez Martínez.
“Laying hens cannot be given an alternative feed because they do not produce. They receive a specific feed that is balanced by the national group with specificities such as minerals and essential amino acids for obtaining eggs, which is why we call it layer feed,” he explains.
This feed involves incorporating corn, wheat, soybeans, oil and other raw materials that Cuba must buy abroad. Importing them to make the feed on the Island, he explains, is cheaper, “but the obstacles imposed by the US blockade make this option difficult, causing it to be sought, paid for immediately and even having to import the feed, which is more expensive,” he complains. In fact, the chickens are currently eating imported feed.
The wind and heavy rains affected the entire process, not only the animals, but also the transportation of personnel
Páez believes that, despite the difficulties, the company has managed to organize itself and take care of the health of the hens while they have been “on a diet,” so that when the food arrived they could react appropriately. He does not explain how the matter was managed, but if his figures are correct, the workers have managed to recover production in a surprisingly short period of time.
The problems for the Cuban authorities never end, however. Then came “another problem, with the bad weather. The wind and the heavy rains affected the whole process, not only the animals, but also the transportation of the staff, the collection of the eggs, the distribution of the feed. These circumstances caused another drop in production that forced us to adopt strategies to ensure that the hens did not go hungry,” he continues.
Now, the problems seem to be coming to an end: feed – of high quality, he points out – is assured and production has multiplied by 22, a real milestone. “The response of the birds is noticeable. With the availability of the feed we have, we are going to recover. However, to satisfy the population with 12 eggs is still a long way off,” he admits.
In the short term, it will be essential to renew the animal population. The future layers arrive directly from Havana when they are barely a day old and there are two farms prior to the production farm: the start-up farm and the development farm, where there are 14,000 birds, which are later incorporated into the layer farm. The hens normally stay there for a year, although currently they stay for two years, one of the problems most referred to the authorities, who regret the aging of the poultry population, with logical repercussions on productivity.
“The direction of the flock should be younger,” laments the official, adding that the hens “are going to start hatching now, but the delays in flock movement extend to the whole nation. They are expected to arrive, but it will not be the number that we should get.”
Problems with feeding chickens and power outages that leave them without electricity and water for days have hampered egg production in Cuba, which fell from five million units per day in 2020 to 2.2 million in 2023.
Authorities have been forced to massively import eggs, as reflected by the expansion of exports from the Dominican Republic to the Island. Between June 2023 and August 2024 alone, the figure grew by 1,858.4% year-on-year. From July 2023, when eggs began to be purchased in the neighboring country, until the end of that year, the expenditure was 1.5 million dollars, while in the 8 months of this year, more than 5.2 million dollars have already been invested.
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