DEFINITION OF BREEDING OBJECTIVE TRAITS FOR SHORT- EARED SOMALI GOAT BREED IN SITTI ZONE, EASTERN ETHIOPIA

This study was aimed at identifying breeding objective traits for the Short-eared Somali goat breed in Sitti zone, eastern Ethiopia. Individual interview, own-flock ranking, and group-animal ranking experiments were conducted to identify breeding objective traits. For the individual interview, structured questionnaire was undertaken with purposively selected 120 goat owners, 60 from each district of Erer and Shinnile. The data collected through the individual interviews was analyzed using descriptive statistics. For the own-flock ranking experiment, flock ranking experiments involving 80 households (e.i, 40 from each district) and 320 goats were used. Goat owners were asked to choose the first three superior and inferior does in their own flocks. Reasons for the ranking and life history of the ranked animals like age, number of kidding, number of kids born, number of kids survived, live weight and linear measurements were recorded. Ten separate group-animal ranking experiments, each involving fifteen breeding does and bucks in each district were conducted. Selected animals were brought to a central places and randomly assigned into five groups, each group consisting of animals of the same sex. Fifteen farmers for Erer goats and twelve farmers for Shinnile goats who were not familiar with the experimental animals were invited to rank the animal in each group. The overall mean (±SE) family size of the household in the study area was 6.2±1.6. Livestock production (72.5%) was the major farming activity in the study area. The overall mean (±SE) livestock possession per household were 41.19±2.38, 8.73±0.32, 1.99±0.12, 2.20±0.17, and 1.24±0.07 for goat, sheep, cattle, camel, and donkey, respectively. A larger average flock size of goats (43.73±3.93) per household was observed in Shinnile district than Erer district (38.65±2.68). Milk production (0.42) followed by the source of income (0.29), and meat for home consumption (0.19) was the primary purpose of keeping goats in the study area. There was high variation in mean values of the traits between 1 st best and inferior ranked does in some traits like body weight (25.15±0.3 vs 20.43±0.2), number of kids born (10.07±0.3 vs 2.41±0.16), number of kids survived (8.93±0.27 vs 1.46±0.11), and kid survival proportion (88.7% vs 60.6%). Positive and significant correlation of milk yield with doe body condition as well as with other quantitative traits (like body weight, body length, chest girth, kid survival proportion, and twinning rate) obtained in this study indicated that selection of milk yield as a selection criterion or giving more weight for milk yield may consistently increase kid survival in the study area. The results of farmers’ preferences for traits of interest in an individual interviews revealed milk yield, body size, and good mothering character as the top selection criteria. In ranking of own animals, keepers were focused on productive, reproductive, and survival traits like milk yield, fast growth, mothering ability, and kid survival as important breeding goal traits, while observable physical traits like body size/conformation, coat color, and body condition were identified as important breeding goal traits in the group-animal ranking experiment. Thus it could be advisable to use either one of the above methods for identification of breeding objective traits in similar production sy