Agricultural Journal
ISSN: Online 1994-4616ISSN: Print 1816-9155
Abstract
The intention of this study was characterizing the goat population of Gumara-Maksegnit watershed area by defining the breeding practices of the goat owners in the area, as well as based on physical appearance traits and body measurements. The study area lies in North Gondar Administrative Zone of Ethiopia. Questionnaire was collected from 71 respondent farmers who raise goats. Beside, quantitative linear measurement traits and body weights were taken from 435 female, 142 male, 27 castrate and a total of 604 goats at age of about 10 months and above. The average goat flock size per household was found to be 8.13. The primary reason of goat owners for keeping goats was found to be generating income. The major selection criteria for breeding does were kid growth, height and mothering ability whereas for breeding bucks, height, coat color and fast growth. Most of the respondents (93 and 98.6%) practice selection of best male and female goats from their flock for breeding. The average (mean±SD) age at sexual maturity in male and female goats obtained were 9.74±2.53 and 7.61±2.62 months, respectively. The average age at first kidding is 13.86±3.31 months. The overall mean kidding interval of goats was 6.35±1.11 months. The overall average litter size of the present study was 1.85±0.36 kids per doe per kidding. The major goat production problems identified were disease, predator and feed shortage in their priority. White coat color (24.2%) is the dominant in a plain pattern followed by red with white color (19.5%) in a patchy or spotted pattern. Least mean square means of body measurements of goats were 33.4±0.5 kg body weight, 74.4±0.5 cm wither height, 62.6±0.4 cm body length, 74.2±0.5 cm heart girth, 22.0±0.4 cm scrotal circumference and 2.9±0.1 body condition score. Male goats were found to have higher body size than females. The growth of the goats can be better explained by quadratic curve (R2 = 72.6%) than linear curve (R2 = 67.3%). The goats attain their maturity at age of eruption of 3 pair of permanent incisors. Heart girth was the most highly correlated trait with live weight followed by body length and thus the prediction equations for does of pooled age group: BW = 0.92 HG-42.8 and BW = 0.67HG+0.29+BL-44.3 while for bucks of pooled age group: BW = 0.97 HG-45.5. Development of health care interventions and practicing cut and carry feeding strategies using available feeds and development of adaptive forage species and conservation methods can be helpful to alleviate goat production constraints. The presence of high variation in live weight and other body measurements of the goats can indicate the possibility of selection as promising intervention option for future improvement. At farmers’ management condition, heart girth of male goats and combination of heart girth with body length of female goats can be used to estimate body weight based on the prediction equations.
How to cite this article:
Alayu Kidane, Surafel Melaku and Aynalem Haile. Characterization of Goat Population and Breeding Practices of Goat Owners in Gumara-Maksegnit Watershed-North Gondar, Ethiopia.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36478/aj.2014.5.14
URL: https://www.makhillpublications.co/view-article/1816-9155/aj.2014.5.14