HUSBANDRY PRACTICE AND MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF INDIGENOUS GOATS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36547/sjas.929Keywords:
body weight gain, farming practice, indigenous goats, morphological traitsAbstract
This study aimed at characterizing the husbandry practice and morphology of the goat population in the study area. The data were collected through face-to-face personal interviews, focus group discussions and measurements of the morphological characteristics of goats. Data on 17 morphological traits were collected from 510 goats (411 females and 99 males) and about 180 households participated in the survey. Data were analysed using different procedures of the Statistical Analysis System. Crop production, goat rearing, cattle rearing, sheep rearing and apiculture were the major farming activities with index values of 0.41, 0.27, 0.23, 0.08 and 0.003, respectively. The source of immediate cash income, household meat consumption and a means of saving were the main reasons for keeping goats. The average flock size of goats per household is 6.72 ± 3.71. In the lowland areas, most of the kidding occurred in January, September and July. However, in midland and highland areas, September, October and January were ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Most (75.0 to 93.0 %) of farmers culled female goats due to various reasons. The overall mean (± SE) market age for male and female goats were 8.88 ± 0.17 and 9.28 ± 0.16 months, respectively. Most of the goat keepers in the highland (93.3 % and 40.0 %), midland (91.7 % and 38.3 %) and lowland (96.7 % and 95.0 %) agro-ecologies have reported the practice of free grazing during the dry and wet seasons, respectively. Pasteurellosis, Goat pox and Anthrax were the possible economically important diseases in the study areas with index values of 0.298, 0.172 and 0.168, respectively. Feed shortage, disease prevalence, drought and labour shortage were the most limiting factors for goat production, although their importance was not similar across agro-ecologies. Sex, age and agroecology had a significant influence on the body weight and morphological characteristics of goats. Promoting alternative forage development strategies, improved forages and efficient feed utilization and conservation options are important to alleviate feed shortage and enhance drought resilience capacity. In addition, designing and implementing of community-based genetic improvement program through within-breed selection could improve the productivity of indigenous goats.
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