Morphological Characterization of Indigenous Hararghe Highland Goat Breed in Their Native Environment, West Hararghe, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was designed to characterize morphologically Hararghe highland indigenous goat in their home tract and production system. About 930 goats in three agro ecological zones (Highland, midland and lowland) were considered with sex and age groups factor. Brown, white, black, grey and creamy white colors were the common coat color observed with proportions of 34.5%, 26.2%, 15.6%, 14% and 9.7%, respectively. Almost all (95.9%) of this goat breed has no wattle and 78.1% were without bear. Body weight of the goats’ changes at increasing rate at 0PPI to 2PPI and gradual increase was observed at older ages. Sex, age and agro ecological zones had a significant (p<0.01) effect on body weight and many of the linear body measurements. Average body weight of males at age of 0PPI, 1PPI, 2PPI, 3PPI and 4PPI were 15.5±0.36, 24.6±0.66, 29.5±0.77, 37.5±0.86 and 40.7±0.80 kg, respectively. The corresponding values for female goats were 14.6±0.34, 21.6±0.50, 25.2±0.55, 27.0±0.53 and 30.3±0.40 kg, respectively. The result indicated that phenotypic characterization, body weight and linear body measurement description could help as an input for efficient utilization, conservation and designing improvement strategy for this genetic resource in the community