Herd Management and Breeding Practices of Indigenous Goats in Selected Districts of South Gondar Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted with the aim to assess herd management and breeding practices of western highland goat types in Lay-Gayint and Semada Districts. Household survey, focused group dissociation and field observation methods were used to collect the information. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 180 households, who own goats. Semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data. Simple descriptive statistics, ranking trial and chi-square test of SAS ver. 9.40 were used to analyze the collected quantitative and qualitative data. The result of the study revealed mixed farming system was the main production system in the study area. The primary purpose of keeping goat was for cash income across the study areas. Drought and feed shortage were the main production constraints in the study areas. Reproductive performances evaluation works of this study indicated that age at firs maturity of male goat in the Lay-Gayint and Semada districts were 7.85±1.84 and 8.53±2.32 month, while for female goat, it was 7.39±0.88 and 8.32±1.32 months, respectively. In addition, age at first kidding and average kidding interval in Lay-Gayint and Semada goats were (10.48± 1.27 vs 7.01±1.42) and (10.21±1.61 vs 6.94±1.81) months, respectively. The average life span and kid crop per doe per life span for Lay-Gayint and Semada goats were (13.77±2.83 years vs 15.91±3.72 kids) and (11.75±3.07 years vs 14.89±4.16 kids), respectively. On the other hand, the average reproductive life span for Lay-Gayint and Semada male goats were 3.39±0.49 and 3.30±1.24 years, respectively. In the study area, appearance and color were the main selection criteria for both male and female goats. The common breeding practice in the study areas was natural and uncontrolled mating systems. Physical appearance, coat color and performance were used to identify the future generation in the study areas as the two districts share common boundaries and hence, they shared indigenous knowledge about goat breeding and management. From this study, it was concluded that farmers have relatively similar production and breeding objectives. Moreover, the reproductive performances of both Lay-Gayint and Semada goats are similar except for the average lifespan, in which Lay-Gayint goats are better than Semada. The study findings put a baseline for understanding about production and breeding practices of both goat breeds as the first step in designing a sustainable breeding programme.