Phenotypic Characterization and Farmers’ Trait Preference of Indigenous Goat in South Gondar Zone, Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was conducted to phenotypically characterize and assess farmer’s trait preference of indigenous goats in South Gondar zone, Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia with the objective of phenotypically characterize and production system of indigenous goat in the study areas. The study was conducted based on household survey, visual observation and field measurements. The zone was stratified into highland, midland and lowland agro-ecology and then selected one district from each agro-ecology. For household survey, 171 households (57per agro-ecology) were involved whilst body measurements were taken from 603 goats (201 per agro-ecology) of both sexes that have one and above pair of permanent incisor (PPI).Questionnaire and qualitative data were analyzed by using SPSS version 20. General Linear Model (GLM) procedure of SAS Ver.9.3 (2014) was used on quantitative data.Correlation between body weight and linear body measurements as well as REG procedure to regress body weight from linear body measurement for male and female goats were computed by SAS Ver.9.3 (2014).Results revealed that Source of income was a primary purpose of goat rearing in all agro-ecology followed by meat and saving asset in highland and midland while saving and meat in lowland was ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively. Natural pasture was the major source of feed with an index value of 0.50 for all agro-ecology in wet season and 0.49 both for highland and midland, and 0.50 for lowland in dry season. Body conformation was the most preferable trait across all three agro-ecology of the study area followed by reproduction rate and adaptability in highland, coat color and reproduction rate both for midland and lowland. Disease in the study area was ranked as first constraint for goat production across all agro-ecologies with an index value of 0.36, 0.37 and 0.34 followed by feed shortage and predator. Pasteurellosis (in highland and midland) and shoat-pox in lowland were the common and primary goat diseases reported by the respondents in the study area. The overall AFMM, AFMF, (AFK), LS, and reproductive life span of goat in the study area were 7.44±0.08, 7.88±0.08, 12.88±0.08, 1.65±0.0 and 7.04±0.11 respectively. Most qualitative traits observed in the study area for sample goat population were significantly different across agro-ecology except. The most dominant coat color pattern was plain with the proportion of 51.7%, 50.7% and 65.2% in highland, midland and lowland, respectively. White with red (28.4 and 23.9%) in highland and midland respectively while in lowland white (29.9%) were the most frequent observed coat color types in the population. All quantitative traits were significantly (P< 0.05) different between sex, age and agro-ecology of goat except tail length, canon bone length, head length and horn length. Most quantitative traits showed significantly higher average values in the lowland, than the rest two (highland and midland) agro-ecologies and most quantitative trait of the sample goat population for male were significantly higher than the female one. Body weight was significantly correlated with all continuous traits of both male and female goats but higher in heart girth. As a result, the stepwise regressions revealed that heart girth was the most important variable in the prediction of live body weight. Generally the difference and similarities of indigenous goat in morphometric trait and adaptability should be supported by further study on characterization at molecular level under their production environments.