author(s)
T Vijaya Nirmala, A Devivaraprasad Reddy, K Venkata Subbaiah, G Shali Raju, V Deepthi, E Karuna Sree, B Srinivasulu, RVSK Reddy and JV Prasad

abstract
Backyard poultry is an important livelihood component of rural and tribal folks, providing valuable animal protein sources through egg and meat besides aids in economic improvement by providing subsidiary income. KVK, VR gudem has provided the improved backyard poultry variety i.e., Rajasri birds to the tribal women under Tribal Sub Plan (TSP). A multi-stage random sampling procedure was used to select 120 respondents from 12 adopted tribal villages of three mandals i.e. Buttaiahgudem, Jeelugumilli and Polavaram, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh. A semi-structured interview schedule was used to elicit the information from the respondents. Agriculture and horticulture was noticed as primary occupation (80.00%) and poultry as a secondary occupation (70.83%) in these villages. It was found that joint type and medium-size families and the majority of poultry rearers have less education to the primary level of education. The egg productivity of Rajasri birds was a mean of 146 eggs and selling price @ Rs. 8/egg in the local market whereas the average body weight of hen was 1.7 Kg/bird/year and a cock was 2.37 Kg/bird/year and selling price @ Rs.200/Kg live bird. The involvement of women was more in housing, feeding, watering, healthcare, and breeding which were contributed to a larger extent in increasing the household income of the family. The income was generated from backyard poultry rearing was invested for household celebrations, recreation purpose, as a gift to relatives and also to extend the poultry flock production depending upon the felt needs. The participation of tribal women in the backyard poultry rearing is of great importance and played major role in the economic empowerment of tribal women in the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.