Phenotypic Characterization, Breeding and Husbandry Practices for Begait Sheep in Tigrai, Ethiopia

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 study area was characterized by mixed croplivestock system where farmers livelihood depends on both crop and livestock production. The overall livestock holding per households (mean ±SE) are 55.69 ±4.88 sheep, 28.36 ±2.43 goats, 9.23 ±1.05 cattle, 9.87 ±1.08 poultry, 1.33±0.11 donkeys, 0.14 ±0.02 camels and 0.39 ±0.19 honey bee; and most farmers in the study area keep sheep primarily as source of income. The main feed sources for sheep in the area were; crop residue (index =0.38), range land (index =0.31), hay (index =0.16), and natural pasture (index =0.14) and majority of the farmers (77.78 %) shelter their sheep in separate housing during the night to prevent from thefts and predators. Even though poor practice of controlled breeding in the study area, 99.31% and 87.50 % of the respondents practiced selection for breeding male and females respectively. Twin (39.66%) and triple (0.98%) births are reported by respondents. Large muscular body frame, long thin tail, markedly convex facial profile are distinctive features of Begait sheep breed with predominantly patchy (49.80%) coat color followed by plain (44.51%) and spotted (5.69 %) of various colors and dominantly (100%) polled. The breed has relatively heavy live body weight and large body size compared to other sheep breeds in the region in specific and in the country in general with mean live body weight of 55.76 ±0.70kg and 42.40 ±0.36kg for male and female respectively which indicates the potential of the breed for meat production. The major sheep production constraints identified were disease, limitation of grazing land, feed shortage, predator, and lack of market demand with their respective rank index values of 0.20, 0.20, 0.19, 0.07, and 0.06 with significant difference among districts (χ2 = 0.223, P< 0.01).