In Ethiopia, village chickens play a dominant role in total chicken production, but its productivity performance remains low. The study was conducted in south Ethiopia to characterize the management practices and productivity performance of village chickens. A total of 204 respondents were selected through multi-stage sampling and analyzed using SPSS. The result shows that an average chicken holding capacity per HHs is 12.36 and sourced from the local market/farm (46.70%) and hatching (30.55%). The majority of chicken production in the area is women-owned served as an income source by eggs sale (82.2%) and live chicken sale (66.7%). Less than half (47.2%) of the HHS had no access to extension services. The majority (87.8%) of the HHS practiced scavenging with supplementation and provided water (81.7%), while chicken kept without a separate house (96.11%), matting uncontrolled way (100%) and New Castel Disease (75%) were the leading problems. Crossbred chickens produced a higher number of eggs/year (174.27±1.12) than indigenous chickens (56.57±0.39), though indigenous chicken counted a higher hatchability rate (80.28±0.4) than crossbreds (65.23±0.14), a higher crossbred chick mortality rate (49.15%) was noted. These findings indicated that traditional management practices and low productivity performance of village chicken in general, but a little bit crossbred chickens were performed better in egg productivity performance than indigenous ones, nevertheless, still, they need improvement in health care, feed and feeding, housing, watering, and institutional support as a substantial opportunity. Therefore, training, extension service, improved chicken breeds should be a critical intervention point in the study sites.
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