Abstract: Livestock is a key asset and a primary livelihood resource for rural households in most parts of the world and accounts for nearly 95 per cent of family income in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) in Kenya. Despite high economic importance of livestock, inadequate nutrition results to low livestock productivity in Kenya. Ruminant feeding in the ASALs is mainly based on the exploitation of range feed resources. Grazing ruminants forage on different plant species with varying leve...
Abstract: Traditional/backyard pig production systems are found in the larger Western Kenya while commercial systems are predominant in Eastern and Central Kenya including Nairobi. The pig holdings in Coast and few in North-Eastern are commercial systems. The expansion and improvement of the market for pigs and pig products generally in Kenya may explain why pig- keeping is beginning to be found outside traditional pig-keeping areas. The objectives of the study were: 1) To characterize pig p...
Abstract: Southern Africa contains 58% of the world’s savannah elephant population, yet 72% of their range occurs outside of protected areas. It is, therefore, important to develop management guidelines that satisfy the needs of both elephants and people while maintaining environmental heterogeneity and ecosystem processes. Managing elephants as a metapopulation may provide the solution. The goal of this thesis was then to use a habitat-based approach to identify landscape characteristics ...
Abstract: The experiment was conducted to determine Semen quality and AI efficiency of fayoumi, white leghorn and kokkoekes breeds with local hens at Haramaya University. For the experiment of AI efficiency total of 45 similar hens were purchased from Karamile local markets. The hens were vaccinated and all management techniques were used according to Haramaya University poultry farm procedure. To determine semen quality, cockerels of 3 breeds and 10 from each breed with similar age were tak...
Abstract: Limited fresh water resources due to climatic changes are major challenges to face the animal production industry, especially in semi-arid and arid regions. The survey study was conducted to assess the perception regarding the quality of Lake Basaka water for sheep and goats in relation to their physiological and blood response in Fentalle pastoralists and on-station experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of drinking salinity levels of Lake Basaka water on behavioural and...
Abstract: The study was conducted to evaluate the effects of different levels of orange flesh sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) root meal (OFSPRM) on egg production, egg quality, fertility and hatchability of egg, embryonic mortality and economic feasibility on White leghorn layers at Haramaya University Poultry Farm for 90 days. Ninety six White leghorn (WL) layers at thirty-two weeks of age with an average initial body weight of 1176.88± 36.32 g were randomly distributed to four treatments, ...
Abstract: A feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of different levels of soybean meal (SBM) in the ration on feed intake, growth performance, feed conversion ratio (FCR), carcass characteristics and economics of commercial broiler chicks. Two hundred twenty five day-old Cobb-500 unsexed commercial chicks with initial body weight of 48.87±0.42g were used for the experiment. The chicks were randomly distributed to 15 pens of 15 chicks each, which were randomly distributed to 5 tr...
Abstract: The study was conducted to evaluate Comparison of sorghum varieties as asubstitute to maize on feed intake, effciency,egg production, egg quality, fertility,hatchability, embryonic mortality,chick quality, and economic return of White leghorn (WLH) chicken at Poultry Farm of Haramaya University. One hundred fifty six WLH hens with average initial body weight of 989.72 ± 6.8g (mean ±SD) and age at seven month were used for the experiment. The chickens were randomly distributed to1...
Abstract: The study was conducted to phenotypically characterize and assess husbandry and breeding practices of Simada cattle population in three districts of North-Western Ethiopia. Data were collected through semi-structured questionnaire, focus group discussions, field observations and linear body measurements (LBM). A total of 180 households were randomly selected to fill the structured questionnaire and 360 cattle (60 male and 300 female) were sampled for morphological description and l...
Abstract: The study was aimed at evaluating improved Horro, Koekoek, Kuroiler and Sasso-RIR chicken strains for productive and reproductive traits under semi-scavenging conditions and characterizing the poultry production system in Kolfe and Nifassilk districts of Addis Ababa administration. Random samplings were employed to select sample kebeles, households and respondents. For characterization of chicken production systems, a pre-tested questionnaire was administered to 121 households in s...
Abstract: Ethiopia is endowed with cattle population which plays vital role in enhancing smallholder income, food security of households and foreign earnings of the country. But, the productivity per animal is low. To solve the cattle productivity problem, crossbreeding through AI is one of the solutions under operation in Ethiopia. However, the adoption of AI is constrained and determined by several factors. This research was intended to assess the perception of farmers towards the AI techn...
Abstract: The study was conducted at Haramaya University goat farm using 24 intact Hararghe Highland sheep with a mean initial body weight of 16.02±2.5 (mean±SD) to investigate the effect of feeding dried Atella with concentrate mixture on feed intake, apparent digestibility, body weight change, feed conversion efficiency, carcass and meat quality evaluations as well as the economic feasibility of feeding regime of sheep fed a basal diet of grass hay. The experiment consisted of 90 days of...
Abstract: Dairy production is an integral part of rural livelihoods in Ethiopia in general and in Ada’a woreda in particular. Farming households in the study area produce milk for both generating income and own production. But lack of information related to dairy production and marketing is one of the major challenges for this smallholder farmers. Understanding the reasons behind such problem and dairy farmers’ current information accessibility is paramount importance. This study was con...
Abstract: Three interrelated studies were conducted. The first was a survey to assess farmers’ perception, production and utilization of improved forages (IF) under rural and peri-urban production systems of the selected districts of central highlands of Ethiopia. The other studies were conducted to evaluate the comparative nutritive value of vetch hay (VH), and 3 oil seed cakes (noug seed cake (NSC), cotton seed cake (CSC) and linseed cake (LSC), natural pasture hay (NPH) and a ration for...
Abstract: A study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of feeding neem (Azadirachta indica) and pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima) seed as natural feed additive for broiler chicks on feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), carcass characteristics, mortality, chemical composition and sensory of meat, partial budget analysis and blood parameters of broiler chicks. Unsexed one hundred ninety two day-old Cobb 500 broiler chick with initial weight of 42.57 ± 0.67 (mean± SD) grams were ...