Husbandry Practices and Major Constraints of Sheep Production in East Gojjam Zone, North Western Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was aimed to generate basic information on sheep husbandry practices and major constraints in East Gojjam zone.  Purposive sampling technique was employed to select the districts based on their potential of sheep production. Accordingly, three districts  were selected.  About 270 households (90 from each district) were selected through systematic random sampling.  Statistical Analysis System (SAS 9.2., version, 2008) was used to analyze the data and Tukey cramer test was used for the comparison between the districts. The major feed resources both during dry and wet period was natural pasture across the districts followed by crop aftermath during dry period. All household heads of Gozamen, 75% of the household heads in Sinan and 76.92% household heads in Hulet eju district housed their sheep with goats in the same home. The overall lambing interval of ewe in east Gojam zone was reported to be 8-10 months (71.11%) and also about 26.29% of the sample population reported that the overall lambing interval was 11-13 months. The average marketing age was 4.9, 6.13 and 5.94 months for males in Gozamen, Sinan and Hulet eju districts, while the average market age for females were 5.36, 6.37 and 6.22 months respectively. This study revealed that rams and ewes in both Sinan and Hulet eju were late in marketing age (p<0.05) than Gozamen this might be due to the management condition of farmers and the Genetic difference of sheep. Comparatively disease was the most issue as production constraints in the sample population of East Gojjam zone (43.33%) than predators (2.59%) in lambs and other sheep production constraints such as feed shortage, drought, labor, and market accounting for about 54.07%.

Keywords: Husbandry practices, Constraints, East Gojjam Zone