Husbandry Practices and Productivity Performance of Sheep under Traditional Management System in Goncha Siso Enesie District Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted with the objectives of assessing husbandry practices and productivity performance of sheep under traditional management system in Goncha Siso Enesie district Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Semi structured questionnaires were used to collect data on husbandry practices, productive performance and socioeconomic aspects in 2015. One hundred eighty households with small, medium and large flock size sheep were randomly selected from six peasant associations. Mean and standard deviations of sheep flock size of the farmers was about 14.83± 10.76.  Sheep hold several roles and breeding was ranked as the first purpose of keeping sheep. Disease and internal parasite incidence ranked as a major constraint followed by shortage of grazing land, breed performance, and lack of feed during dry seasons.  Average age at first sexual maturity was 11.64± 0.26 and 11.14± 0.253 months for male and female, respectively. Age at first lambing ranged from 15.20 ± 0.354 to 18.37 ± 0.722 months with mean ;f 16.74± 0.249 female sheep. Lambing interval was 9.64± 0.105 months. Overall average litter size was 1.12± 0.023. Single birth was the most frequent (88.9 %) type of birth occurred in sheep of the study area. Lambing occurred most frequently between Novembers to January. Annual reproduction rate of ewes was 1.41 lambs/ewe/year. The mean flock mortality rate was 16.63 %. The total off-take rate was 37.39% per annum. Traditional sheep production systems in the study area was considered unsatisfactory in feeding and feed management practices. Poor productive and reproductive performances of indigenous sheep breed were investigated. In addition to, the strategy could focus on developing small-scale market-oriented intensive production systems depending on the characteristics of the existing production systems and agro-ecologies to achieve growth and transformation plan.

Keywords: Body weight, husbandry practice linear body measurements, productivity performances, Sheep