The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) poultry facility in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is a centre of excellence for research in poultry genetics, health and nutrition for the scientific and education community.
The ILRI poultry facility welcomes new partnerships with universities, agribusinesses, research institutes and development organizations. Whether for joint research, trials, breed improvement or training, the facility offers innovative infrastructure and deep technical expertise to support transformative work in poultry systems.
It consists of indoor and outdoor poultry raising structures, allowing researchers to simulate and test controlled trials alongside smallholder conditions. The indoor facility has 20 pens that host up to 4,000 adult chickens, plus an incubation and hatching room.
The outdoor spaces consist of four large open fields, each measuring 400 square metres, mimicking the semi-scavenging conditions of raising poultry in smallholder settings.
The facility was established in 2018 in partnership with the University of Edinburgh and with support from the Roslin Foundation, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and ILRI's livestock genetics, nutrition and feed resources program.
