Husbandry and Breeding Practices of Indigenous Goats, Pre-Weaning Growth Performance, and Mortality Rate of Kids in Abrehamo District, Benishangul-Gumuz Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

The present study assessed the husbandry and breeding practices of goats, pre-weaning growth performance, and mortality rate of kids in the Abrehamo district. Data were collected through personal single rapid field survey and detailed structured questionnaire interviews of 164 respondents. Moreover, flock monitoring was conducted by purposively selecting goat flocks of 28 households having 61 pregnant does and 45 kids. The live body weight was measured in the morning before the kids were permitted to suckle their mothers. The result revealed that farmers keep goats as a primary source of cash income, meat production and/or consumption. Goats account for the largest share of the livestock holdings and the tropical livestock unit (TLU) among other species in the study area. Uncontrolled breeding was practiced. Disease, shortages of feed, predators, and poor extension service were the most important goat production constraints in their order of importance. The overall mean birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), and average pre-weaning daily gain (PrWDG) of kids were 2.32 ±0.06 kg, 9.07±0.17 kg, and 74.82 g/day, respectively. The BW, WW, and PrWDG were significantly affected (P<0.05) by sex, type of birth, and parity of does. Kids born from their first parity dams, twin-born kids, and female-born kids had the lowest survival rate. The study revealed that there is a need to further improve the general husbandry and breeding practices by designing appropriate improvement strategies in order to enhance the productivity of goats.