Banaba: The Only Philippine Native Line With a Published Feed Figure
not publishedEggs
Banaba is named in PNS/BAFS 262:2018 but is absent from the DOST-PCAARRD breed information system, which is the only Philippine source publishing egg figures by line.
not publishedMature weight, rooster
The weights in circulation for this line trace to no primary source and contradict each other, appearing as both 1.49 kg and 2.44 kg for the rooster across trade write-ups.
not publishedMature weight, hen
The weights in circulation for this line trace to no primary source and contradict each other, appearing as both 1.49 kg and 2.44 kg for the rooster across trade write-ups.
not publishedTo market
No Philippine source publishes days to a stated market weight for this line.
Native typeFree-range standard
Named in PNS/BAFS 262:2018. Slaughter not earlier than 90 days.
The short answer
Banaba is the Batangas line, and it carries the single most-quoted number in Philippine native chicken keeping: an FCR of 3.17. Galing po iyon sa isang undergraduate thesis noong 2014, on 20 birds, over 56 days, with only the abstract public. Ganoon kaliit ang buong pambansang tala ng kinakain ng native na manok.
Source Carpizo RA (2014), UPLB Knowledge Digital Repository (abstract only) (read on August 22, 2026)
What the trial actually did
Twenty four-week-old native chickens of the Banaba strain, split into two groups, at the Native Animal Farm of the Animal and Dairy Science Cluster, UPLB, from January to March 2014. Each bird had 0.75 m² of house and 5 m² of range. Organic production, 56 days, and the birds grazed.
| Reported at 12 weeks of age | Figure |
|---|---|
| Average body weight | 408.12 g ±25.63 |
| Cumulative feed consumption | 1,305 g ±386.08 |
| Cumulative FCR | 3.17 ±0.75 |
| Day-old weight, from Lambio (2010) | 26.40 g |
The abstract also reports a cumulative gain in weight of 101.12 g carrying the same standard deviation as the body weight, ±25.63. Mukhang typo po iyon sa abstract mismo, and since only the abstract is public there is no table to check it against, so this page does not use that row.
The FCR is real and it is not a feed conversion
Here is the part that matters and that nearly every page quoting 3.17 leaves out. Ang mga ibon ay nakakalabas sa damuhan, and the study reports that they preferred grasses over broadleaves, with Cynodon dactylon the most favoured, and that the grazed area was roughly half depleted every 28 days.
That forage was eaten. It was not weighed. So the 1,305 g is what went into the feeder, at hindi po iyon ang lahat ng kinain ng manok. A true feed conversion needs everything the bird ate in the numerator, which means the real figure is worse than 3.17 by an unknown amount.
None of that makes the trial bad. It makes the number narrow: it is feed purchased per kilo of gain under free-range, which is a genuinely useful thing to know and is not the same claim as a broiler’s 1.6.
| Feed purchased to 12 weeks | 1,305 g, n=20The only published Philippine grow-out feed figure for any native line. Forage eaten on range is not included. |
|---|---|
| Body weight at 12 weeks | 408.12 g ±25.63One trial, one farm, 56 days, organic free-range. Not a growth curve; there is one age in the record. |
| Mature weight | Not publishedFigures circulate online with no source behind them. Nothing from a Philippine study could be found for this page. |
| Eggs, fertility, hatchability | Not publishedBanaba is outside the DOST-PCAARRD breed system, so it carries none of the reproductive figures the four documented lines have. |
One age is not a curve
Compare the two Philippine growth records side by side and the limit shows itself. Banaba: 408.12 g at 12 weeks, which is day 84. Boholano: 430.91 g at day 75 and 735.96 g at day 120, from 870 and 809 birds.
Do not read that as Boholano beating Banaba. Magkaibang sistema po ang dalawa, magkaibang lugar, magkaibang taon, and one of them is twenty birds against nearly nine hundred. What it does show is the shape of the whole national record: two lines, three usable ages between them, and nothing else.
What a Batangas keeper gets from this
The practical answer is modest, at mas mabuti pa rin ito kaysa sa wala. Budget roughly a kilo and a third of purchased feed per bird to twelve weeks if you are running range, expect a bird well under half a kilo at that age, and do not plan a sale date off either figure.
Then write down your own. Ang sarili mong talaan ang tanging pinagkukunan na naglalarawan ng sarili mong alaga, and on this particular line it would also be the second data point the country has.
Questions people actually ask
How much feed does a native chicken eat to market age?
The only published Philippine figure is 1,305 g of cumulative feed consumption to 12 weeks, with a cumulative FCR of 3.17, from a 2014 undergraduate trial on 20 Banaba birds at UPLB under an organic free-range system. The birds also grazed, and grazed forage was not weighed.
How much does a Banaba chicken weigh at 12 weeks? Show the answer
408.12 g, with a standard deviation of 25.63 g, in the same trial. For scale, the Boholano growth curve published by Nombrefia et al. (2023) reaches 430.91 g by day 75, which is nine days earlier, though the two were kept under completely different systems.
Is Banaba in the DOST-PCAARRD breed information system? Show the answer
No. The system covers Darag, ZamPen, Camarines and Boholano only. For Banaba the published record is this one thesis abstract plus a day-old weight of 26.40 g that Nombrefia et al. (2023) carry from Lambio (2010).
How many eggs does a Banaba hen lay? Show the answer
No figure from a Philippine primary source could be found for this page. Numbers circulate online, and none of them traces to a study, a station or a date. That is why the egg field on this page is empty.