TITLE:
Sheep Production Systems and Breeding Practices for Selected Zones of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia
AUTHORS:
Kiflay Welday, Mengistu Urge, Solomon Abegaz
KEYWORDS:
Husbandry Practice, Production Constraints, Sheep production System
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Animal Sciences,
Vol.9 No.1,
January
21,
2019
ABSTRACT: A study was undertaken to identify the production
system, breeding practices and major production constraints of common Tigray
highland sheep in 16 rural kebelles from
eight districts of Tigray Regional State. A total of 480 households (30
households for each rural kebelle)
were selected purposively to collect data through personal observations and a
detailed structured questionnaire. Mixed crop-livestock production system was
the dominant farming system in all the study districts. The farmers kept a
variety of livestock species including sheep, goats, cattle, chickens horse,
donkeys and bee colony. Sheep, principally as source of income, meat for home
consumption, production of manure and for socio cultural purposes, are commonly
herded with other species in the open grazing fields by young boys in a family.
Mating was generally uncontrolled. Body size, growth rate and adaptability were
the major traits in selecting rams, whereas ewes were selected based on body
size, twining ability and lambing interval. Majority of sheep across all
districts are housed in structures known as Gebella which is built from stone and mud wall and tree/corrugated iron sheet
roofing separated from the main family house. The major constraints hampering
sheep production in the study areas were feed shortage (0.25), lack of capital
(0.24), insufficient veterinary services (0.2), limited grazing land (0.2),
water scarcity (0.06) and predators (0.05) with index value indicated in
parenthesis. In order to improve the productivity of sheep, it is important to
involve farmers and other stockholders in addressing these constraints and designing
breed improvement interventions, considering the overall farming and breeding
practice of smallholders.