Abstract: The study was conducted in Darolebu and Haramaya districts of eastern Oromia with the objective of characterising chicken production system and evaluating production performances of Sasso x RIR, Koekoek and improved Horro chickens under village production system for 44 weeks. For the characterization of the chicken production system data were collected from 118 households through semi-structured and structured questionnaires while 144 households were included for on-farm performanc...
Abstract: The study was carried out to evaluate the reproductive and artificial insemination service efficiency of dairy cows under smallholder farmers’ management in Eastern zone of Tigray, Northern, Ethiopia. The study involved survey to assess dairy cattle management practices, retrospective study to evaluate the efficiency of AI service, and field monitoring to confirm the retrospective study. A total of 128 households (64 AI beneficiary and 64 AI non-beneficiary households) were selec...
Abstract: The study was conducted in the Konso Zone of southern Ethiopia to Evaluate the Community Based Breeding Program (CBBP) on Woyto-Guji (Konso) goat breed. A total of 1984 birth weight (BW), 1663 three-month weight (3MW), 1411 six-month weight (6MW), 1133 nine month weight (9MW), and 987 twelve-month weight (12MW) records were used for the analysis of non-genetic and genetic factors affecting growth traits. The least-square means analysis was performed using the general linear model p...
Abstract: This study was carried out to estimate genetic parameters and to evaluate non-genetic ef ects on milk production and reproductive performance of Jersey cattle via an animal model by using variance component estimation VCE-6 version 6.0.2 & PEST 4.2.5 and SAS software (2016) version 9.4 the GLM procedure. The data was obtained from a state farm, located in South Ethiopia, Woliata Sodo, Ethiopia. The least-square mean value of production traits such as Daily Milk Yield (DMY) and Lact...
Abstract: This study was conducted to assess the breeding practices and to evaluate AI efficiency after estrus synchronization in dairy cattle in Lemo and Misha districts. The study was conducted at two agro-ecological zones Misha (highland) and Lemo (mid-altitude). Data were collected using semi structured questionnaire and focus group discussion. A total of 120 respondents were randomly selected from the two districts (60 from each) and 6 kebeles (3 kebeles each and 20 household from each ...
Abstract: Questionnaire survey from 144 households and physical measurements from 510 animals were done to characterize production system and phenotype of the Begait sheep breed in two districts of Tigrai regional state. Reconnaissance tour, focus group discussion, semistructured interview, field observation, secondary data and linear body measurements were used to generate the dataset and analyzed using SPSS V20 and SAS V9.1 for the survey and linear body measurements respectively. The stud...
ABSTRACT Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of frequency of semen collection and management systems on semen quality, fertility and hatchability of local turkeys in the humid tropics. A total of 72 local Nigerian turkeys comprising 24 males and 48 females were used for the study at 36 weeks of age with average body weight of 9kg for the males and 4kg for the females. The males were randomly divided into two groups (1 and 2) with 12 males in each group. Group 1 males were i...
ABSTRACT The present study was carried out to evaluate genetically the growth performance of the Gudali and Wakwa beef cattle. Data utilized for this study was obtained from the Institute of Agricultural Research for Development (IARD), Wakwa Station, Cameroon. The data used consisted of pedigree information of 3788 animals and 2276 performance records for the Gudali and Wakwa cattle respectively, ranging from birth to 36-months weight collected from 1968 and 1988. The data were collected fro...
ABSTRACT Gulella taitensis is a land snail of the family Streptaxidae and genus Gulella. It is endemic to Taita hills and categorized as endangered on the IUCN Red List. The species is threatened by habitat loss and disturbance due to human activities. Two people sampled snails at four sampling plots using standard timed direct search for one hour. Soil samples were collected from four different points within these sampling plots, and its pH, calcium and electrical conductivity obtained using...
ABSTRACT Indigenous chicken are a valuable asset and form an integral part of many households in Kenya in terms of food security, economic and social roles. Given their value to the agricultural sector, various interventions are being developed and implemented to realize their potential in the sector. Such interventions involve genetic improvement of production traits which directly translate to increased revenues. However, this is likely to be accompanied with increased inputs, especially fe...
A deterministic bio-economic model that incorporates risk for pasture-based dairy cattle production in the tropics was developed. Two production circumstances were considered: fixed pasture (FP) and fixed herd size (FH). In each circumstance, efficiencies (both economic and biological) and profit were calculated based on milk marketing on volume, and on volume and butter fat content. Additionally, a profit function was used to estimate risk-rated profit(s) where the intensity of the farm...
ABSTRACT The Sahiwal population in Kenya, which is bred under a closed nucleus, is faced with declining effective population size over the years and rate of inbreeding per generation >1% beyond which it should not exceed for a population to maintain its long-term fitness and viability. This study estimated gene origin statistics, Wright’s F-statistics, current and future rates of inbreeding, coancestry and effective population size and genetic gain in lactation milk yield at predetermined r...
Genetic and phenotypic parameters for longevity, genetic relationship between longevity and growth, milk yield and fertility traits and rate of inbreeding were estimated for Sahiwal cattle in Kenya. The aim was to assess the genetic diversity and inbreeding depression for performance traits. Data utilized were for cows born between 1972 and 2004 and with milk production records between 1976 and 2008. Measures of longevity related to productive life were: time between birth (Long_1) or fi...
The objective of this study was to contribute to dairy cattle improvement in Kenya through optimization of breeding systems that incorporate reproductive technologies and milk quality traits in the dairy cattle breeding programme. Specifically, the study: 1) compared response to selection realized in a closed two-tier nucleus breeding system utilizing different reproductive technologies, 2) estimated the economic values for milk protein yield and mastitis resistance, and 3) compared resp...
ABSTRACT Poultry production is one of the animal production enterprises with a promising future in Rwanda as 80.1% of all Rwandese raise chickens. Indigenous chickens (IC) are the most numerous and important species of poultry as they are found in most rural households in Rwanda. Currently, IC potential is underutilized due to the lack of well-defined production and breeding practices; the farmer, marketer and consumers’ breed preferences and traits of economic importance are unknown. The ...