Browsing by Author "BEHAILU SAMUEL"

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    HUSBANDRY PRACTICES AND PRODUCTIVITY OF ARSI-BALE GOATS IN AGARFA DISTRICT OF OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA
    (Hawassa University College of Agriculture, 2016) BEHAILU SAMUEL
    This study was conducted in Agarfa district with the objectives; to assess the husbandry practices and reproductive performance, to evaluate the productive performance and estimate offtake rates and also to identify the major constraints and opportunities of Arsi-Bale goats production in Agarfa district. Semi-structured questionnaire survey was carried out on 150 interviewees who are selected randomly from the three agro-ecologies. On-farm monitoring of the growth performance of kids owned by farmers was also conducted. The data obtained from the survey was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages; while data on growth performance was analyzed applying Analysis of Variance using General linear model procedure of SPSS version 17.0.The result showed that the average land holding per household was 2.3 ± 0.13 ha. Goats were the most(p<0.05) widely reared livestock species next only to cattle in terms of TLU. The main purpose of keeping goats in the study area was for income generation. The major feed and water sources were natural pasture and river water respectively. Most farmers let their goats alone to graze. The most common type of goats house in the study area is the one which is constructed attached to the family house sharing the common wall. Small proportion of farmers practice weaning of kids to maintain body condition of dams. Most farmers (40%) in the study area practice castration of goats for fattening and selling, of which only (50%) of farmers used modern method of castration. The major reason for culling of goats in the area was old age(71.2%). Most of the kidding(34.7%) in the study area were from September to November. The overall mean age at first mating (female), age at first mating (male),age at first kidding and kidding interval were reported to be 7.28±0.04,8.48±0.05,14.57±0.04 and 7.11±0.03 months respectively. The overall mean birth weight and two month weight of kids were found to be 2.38±0.1 kg and 6.94±0.2kg respectively. The mean average daily weight gain was 76.2 ± 1.9 g/day up to two months.The birth weight of kids born from first parity does(irrespective of sexes) was significantly lower(P<0.001) than kids from second and above parity does. The triplets had significantly lower (P<0.001) birth weight than twins and triple born kids. The effect of sex too indicated that the buck kids were significantly heavier ( P<0.001) than the doe kids. Kids that were born from first and fifth parity does had significantly lower (P<0.01) average daily weight gain than kids from second,third,fourth and sixth parity does. Single born and male kids had significantly heavier(P<0.01) average daily weight gain than twins and female kids. The survival rate and commercial offtake rates of goats in the area was 91.67% and 16.6% respectively. Disease and parasites and drought were reported to be the two major constraints of goats production in the area. Even though the current overall productivity of goats in the area is fairly encouraging as compared to other indigenous Ethiopian goats breeds, full potential need to be exploited by improving husbandry practices,offtake potential and solving production constraints