Assessment of Sheep and Goat Production System and Evaluation of Chemical composition of Major Feed Resources in Esera District, Dawuro Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia has 30.70 million sheep and 30.20 million goat populations. Unlike the large potential of small ruminants in the country their productivity is low. There are various factors that contribute for low productivity. This study was conducted in Esera district, Dawuro Zone of Southern Ethiopia with the objectives of assessing sheep and goat production systems and evaluating chemical composition of major sheep and goat feed resources. Stratified random and purposive random samplings were applied to select study kebeles and household, respectively. One hundred thirty eight households (HHs) owning sheep and goat were selected randomly from the three agro-ecologies. A semistructured questionnaire was prepared and used to collect data on sheep and goathusbandry practices, reproductive performances, constraints and opportunities and major available feed resources.The five major feed were collected (one indigenous grass species and 4indigenous browse and legumes tree species) for determinationof DM,CP, ash, CF, EE, NDF, ADF and NFE from each agro-ecology by using the procedure of proximate andVan Soest method.The average family size was 5.23±0.195. Crop-livestock farming was the commonly practiced farming system (100%) with (69.1%) extensive and (30.9%) semi-intensive production system. The mean land holding was 3.1288±0.19 ha per HH and was significantly (p<0.05) varied across agro-ecologies. The average sheep and goat flock size per HH was 6.08±0.183 and 5.69±0.236, respectively and was significantly (p<0.05) varied across agro-ecologies. The main purposes of keeping sheep and goat in the district were cash income, insurance, meat, manure and wealth with indexes’ of 0.32, 0.29, 0.16, 0.13 and 0.08, respectively. Natural mating (100%) was the only used breeding practice in highland, midland and lowland. The first three major feed resources for sheep and goat were natural pasture, river and road side and crop aftermath with index of 0.26, 0.23 and 0.20, respectively. Grazing and browsing on natural pasture was the commonly used feeding system. Majority (80.7%) of HHs kept their sheep and goat in their living house while 19.3% kept in separate house. The sources of water for sheep and goat were river, tap, rain water and spring water. Internal and external parasite was the first and second ranked disease and parasite of sheep and goat in the study area. For sheep, estimated average age at puberty (6.6±0.12 months for male and 7.7±0.16 months for female), age at first lambing (12.7±0.16 month) and lambing interval (8.4±0.17 month) were significantly higher (p<0.05) in the HL than in ML and LL. For goats, estimated average age at puberty (7.04±0.10 months for male and 7.40±0.10 months for female), age at first kidding (13.04±0.16 months) and lambing interval (8.5±0.12 months) were significantly Higher (p<0.05) in the highland than in midland and lowland agro ecology. The major opportunities of sheep and goat production was short generation interval, high market demand and requires small space and capital for investment with index of 0.26, 0.24 and 0.23 respectively and the major constraints of small ruminant production was disease and parasite, feed and grazing land shortage. The average DM, CP, CF, NDF and ADF content of natural grass species and indigenous browse species was 85.61, 6.9, 45.31, 67.12, 50.02 and 89.5, 17.26, 40.66, 41.36, 56.54, respectively.The result of this study showed that the sheep and goat production system of the area was small holder which was mainly depends up oncrop livestock production system with traditional husbandry practice and available local breeds of sheep and goat. Therefore, provision of strong extension services and training on sheep and goat production system, husbandry practices and potentials of existing breed for sheep and goat production in order to improve the production capacity and productivity of sheep and goat is necessary to enhance income of smallholder society.