ON-FARM PHENOTYPIC CHARACTERIZATION OF INDIGENOUS CATTLE AND THEIR PRODUCTION SYSTEM IN BABILLE DISTRICT, EAST HARARGE ZONE, OROMIYA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

The study was conducted in Babile district of Oromiya Regional State, Ethiopia, with the objective to identify and phenotypically characterize indigenous cattle populations and their production systems in the study area. Field studies and collection of data were carried out through semi-structured questionnaire, focus group discussions, key informants, observations and linear body measurements of sample cattle and secondary data collection from different sources. A total of 90 households were randomly selected for semi structured questionnaire interview and 150 cattle were sampled for morphological description and linear body measurements. SAS and SPSS software were used to analyze the data. The study result revealed that the average cattle herd size was 6.32±4.66 heads per household. The main purposes of keeping cattle in the area were milk production, draught power, income generation and meat production. The dominant coat color in both female (34%) and male (50%) was white followed by grey (32% and 24%) in female and male, respectively. The age at first calving of cattle of the area was 5.89±0.50 years. The calving interval (CI) of the cow was estimated to be 18.67±6.20 months. The average reproductive life time and number of calves born per female were found to be 11.53±1.65 years and 5.47±0.89 calves, respectively. Natural mating is the main breeding system in the area. The main sources of breeding bull were own herd (25.6%) and own and neighboring herd (74.4%). The effective population size and inbreeding coefficient were estimated to be 123.67 and 0.4%. The main traits of cattle preferred by the community were coat color, carcass yield and milk yield. The main cattle feed resource in all seasons is natural pasture obtained from community grazing land. The major cattle production constraints were feed and water shortage and diseases. The main cattle diseases in the area were trypanosomiasis, pasteurellosis, parasites (external and internal), blackleg, and foot and mouth disease. The current study result indicated that Indigenous cattle reproductive performance was low. Therefore, it could be concluded that designing appropriate breed improvement programmes with the participation of the community and implementation of full package improvement (feed, health and management) cattle productivity in the study area shall be improved.