Chebo Chencha, Getachew Antehun, Kechero Yisehak
Department of Animal Sciences, Arba Minch University, P. O. Box 21, Arba Minch, Ethiopia.
Department of Animal and Range Sciences, DawuroTarchaCampus, Wolaita Sodo University, P. O. Box 138, Tarcha, Ethiopia.
Trop Anim Health Prod. 2025 Jul 11;57(6):297. doi: 10.1007/s11250-025-04543-z.
Indigenous goats in tropical regions are adapted to diverse ecological and management conditions, providing significant benefits to millions of rural communities. This study examined the current indigenous goat breeding practices and performances in four rural districts of Gamo zone. Data were collected through an on-farm survey and repeated recordings from 180 goat-keeping households and analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics as well as indexed ranking. The study showed that, meat production, selling live goats as a source of cash income, and saving assets were identified and ranked as the major purposes of goat keeping. Uncontrolled natural mating (93.9%) was predominantly practiced goat breeding system in the study districts. Both economic and adaptive traits were considered by farmers during breeding stock selection. However, poor-performing goats are culled through selling, slaughtering, or castration. The estimated inbreeding coefficient (0.0005) indicated that there was availability of sufficient breeding stocks and no inbreeding problem in the studied goat populations. Moreover, the majority of the reproductive performance indicators and milk off-take exhibited a significant variation across study districts (p ≤ 0.05), showing high indexes of reproduction performance (young ages at puberty, mating and kidding, high litter size, longevity of life, and reproductive age) and better daily milk yield and lactation length. Thus, the study provided valuable insights on productive performances, breeding stock selection, and culling practices, which would allow improving the livelihood of farmers and would eventually contribute to the national economy. Further research was suggested to investigate the consumer-preferred meat quality of Garda Marta and Arba Minch Zuria goats and a selective breeding tied with a community-based breeding approach to improve unplanned breeding and boost overall performances.
热带地区的本土山羊适应了多样的生态和管理条件，为数百万农村社区带来了显著益处。本研究调查了加莫地区四个农村地区当前的本土山羊养殖实践和生产性能。通过对180户养羊家庭进行农场调查和重复记录收集数据，并采用描述性统计、推断性统计以及指数排名进行分析。研究表明，肉类生产、出售活羊作为现金收入来源以及储蓄资产被确定并列为养羊的主要目的。在所研究的地区，非控制性自然交配（93.9%）是主要的山羊繁殖方式。农民在选择种畜时同时考虑了经济性状和适应性性状。然而，表现不佳的山羊通过出售、屠宰或阉割进行淘汰。估计的近亲繁殖系数（0.0005）表明，所研究的山羊群体中有足够的种畜，不存在近亲繁殖问题。此外，大多数繁殖性能指标和产奶量在不同研究地区之间存在显著差异（p≤0.05），显示出较高的繁殖性能指标（青春期、交配期和产仔期年龄较小，产仔数多，寿命长，繁殖年龄长）以及较好的日产奶量和泌乳期长度。因此，该研究为生产性能、种畜选择和淘汰实践提供了有价值的见解，这将有助于改善农民的生计，并最终为国家经济做出贡献。建议进一步开展研究，调查加达玛尔塔山羊和阿尔巴明奇祖里亚山羊受消费者青睐的肉质，并采用基于社区的育种方法进行选择性育种，以改善无计划的繁殖并提高整体性能。
