Community based characterization of afar goat breed around aysaita district of afar region

Abstract

Characterization is the first step in any breed improvement and conservation strategy. This study was undertaken in Afar Region, Aysaita District with the aim of documentinginvestigating the indigenous knowledge of the community in goat husbandry and breeding management as well as phenotypic performance of Afar goat breed in it environment. Purposive and random sampling techniques were employed to select the PAsthe PAs and households. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools, semi-structured questionnaires, body measurements and recording morphological characters were employed to collect the data. A survey was conducted with 124 respondents (83 from two pastoral and 41 from one agropastoral PAs). A total of 891 adult goats above six months of age were used for physical description of the goat population. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze qualitative and quantitative data. Indexes were calculated for all ranking data. The survey results showed that livestock and livestock products are the major source of income. Goats ranked first in pastoral and second in agropastoral area in their importance. Goats were mainly kept for milk production (I = 0.36), income source (I = 0.24), saving and insurance (I = 0.21) and fulfillment of social and cultural affairs (I = 0.14).The most preferred traits to be improved were milk yield (I=0.35), adaptation (I=0.14) and behavioral traits (I=0.10) for female goats, while body size and conformation (I=0.35) as well as coat color (I=0.20) were favored for males. Breed improvement is mainly undertaken through selection of male goats at juvenile age. Breeding males are mainly selected based on family history (I=0.30). Body size and conformation (I=0.27) are also important criteria in agropastoral system. The average flock size was 37.0 ± 25.0. There was significant variation y (P<0.01) in flock size between production systems and with flock size of 21.0 in agropastoral and 44.7 in pastoral areas. Flock structures are is dominated by breeding females which account 82.8% of the flock. The overall buck to does ratio was 1:13. Average age at sexualmaturity was 9.3 ± 3.3 months for female and 9.8 ± 2.2 months for males. Age at first kidding was 17.1 ± 2.3 months while the average kidding interval was 8.0 ± 0.97 months. The average number of kids born per breeding female is 1.4. The average daily milk yield was 1.1 ± 0.4 liter per doe for an averagean average lactation length of 2.7 months. The key identification features of the breed are their patchy (44.3%) and spotted (26.8%) coat color pattern and straight upward pointing horn (95.4%). Black coat color (46.6%), convex facial profile (49.9%), straight back profile (80.6%) and horizontal ears form (42.0%) are the dominant features. The overall mean body weight was 23.8 kg. Body measurements for males and females were (26.44 and 20.87 kg) for body weight, (64.8 and 59.5 cm) for chest girth, (63.1 and 58.9 cm)for body length, (59.6 and 55.4 cm) for height at wither, (13.3 and 12.4 cm) for pelvic width, (13.0 and 12.5 cm) for ear length and (26.44 and 20.87 cm) for horn length. In all measurements, males were significantly (P<0.01, P<0.05) superior heavier than females except ear length (P>0.05). Age significantly (P<0.05) influenced body measurements. Most body measurements increased consistently as age advances. Most of the linear parameters depicted positive and highly significant (P<0.01) correlation with body weight. The body weighs could be predicted with higher accuracy from heart girth, body length, wither height and body condition. About 81.5% of households practiced controlled mating through running selected buck in the flock (49.1%) and culling undesirable males and females (31.5%). The major source of breeding buck was own flock (83.1%) and inability to prevent mating among close family was higher (97%).The major threats in goat production were diseases (I=0.33), feed shortage (I=0.29), extensive expansion of crop, farming (I=0.21) and invasion of range land (I=0.13). It could be concluded that, goats are primarily preferred livestock species and adapted in arid environment and farmers have indigenous knowledge that favored some traits, which will suggest the introduction of community based genetic improvement coupled with improving management to benefit the households.