**2. History and background of ethnoveterinary practices**

Herbs and medicinal plants along with other traditional practices play a crucial role in human and animal health management [8]. Herbs and medicinal plants are a source of drug compounds, emerging modern medicines and play a critical role in the conventional medicine revolution [1]. Thus, herbs form an important foundation in the development of medicines and are a natural blueprint in advancement of new drugs or phyto-medicine in controlling and treating livestock diseases such as indigenous chickens. Ethnoveterinary practices in general consist of local based indigenous knowledge and methods used to care for, heal and manage livestock health. These were developed over a long time through trial-and-error method [8–10]. They are a viable and valuable alternative to and complement conventional synthetic veterinary medicines in the management of chicken's health characterized by rising costs [11]. Although, EVPs such as herbs or plants are recognized for their medicinal and pesticidal value, there is consensus among farmers and science that these be documented and preserved as alternatives for and advancement of animal health management [12]. Fears are that this valuable knowledge might be lost due to rapid socio-economic, environmental and technological changes.

The EVPs are commonly used among rural communities and smallholder farmers. Evidently, they are also used in commercial breeds such as broilers [13]. The resource constrained production systems used by smallholder farmers is characterized by free ranging behavior and scavenging nature in indigenous chicken management. Birds produced under these conditions, have a high mortality, that is why indigenous chickens have low productivity as a result of accidents, predation and diseases [14]. High prevalence of diseases is one of the principal limitations to these production systems [15]. Smallholder farmers and those in peri-urban areas are resource constrained, finance included, have limited access to veterinary services, information about the prevention and treatment of animal diseases, as well as prophylactic and therapeutic veterinary medicines [16]. This forms the basis as to why farmers utilize a combination of EVPs for their indigenous chicken health

#### *Ethnoveterinary Practices for Indigenous Poultry Health Management by Smallholder Farmers DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108912*

management, and in most cases are inclined more to EVPs. Most of these commercial drugs are expensive and are not easily accessible and affordable to the resource-poor smallholder farmers [17]. Natural options, especially plant-based products or herbs that are locally available and easily accessible as the medicines of choice for most resource poor smallholder farmers, especially women. The knowledge of EVPs appears to be mostly in the custodian of older people, both men and women. They systematically pass it to younger generations by word of mouth. This form of communication is still the most widespread means of communication in local villages in Africa.

It is observed that a fraction of EVPs knowledge is accessible to all indigenous chicken producers, and another portion is a protectively guarded family secret [18]. In rapidly changing world driven by commercialization, EVPs are increasingly shunned upon, and viewed as backward and old fashioned. Despite, these contestations, the continued use of conventional medicines is linked to environmental damage, rising costs and adverse effects to human health [19]. There are also increasing concerns for drug resistant disease-causing microorganisms due to over and improper use of conventional medicines [20]. It is why recently, there is a paradigm shift to focus on and increased demand for organic agricultural practices globally for animal health management. Herbs and medicinal plants offer a practicable choice due to the fact that they are broader in spectrum of action. Ethnoveterinary Practices are relatively more accessible, easy to prepare and administer at a little to no cost on the farmer. Moreover, most traditional herbs have a long record of safety. Their documentation offers more new options in the advancement of science and new insights or inroads to cheaper and healthier alternatives to animal health management. This makes them an attractive and viable option for use in indigenous chickens by both commercial and resource constrained rural farmers [21, 22]. Clearly, EVPs have once again become an important component of agriculture and are set to play a crucial role in the future of animal health management [17]. This chapter, therefore, comprehensively reviews literature on EVPs and uses empirical data from Vhembe district in Limpopo province of South Africa to document herbs, medicinal plants and other traditional practices used to treat and control indigenous village chicken diseases.

#### **3. Chapter objectives**

The objectives of this chapter are to:


Where applicable and necessary illustrative sketches are given. Also, socioeconomic aspects of EVPs are scrutinized with the view to understand the system of knowledge transfer and gender roles.
