Abstract:
The Study was conducted to assess cattle husbandry and breeding practices of Nuer
Community for (Abigar) cattle in two districts of Gambella Ethiopia. Multi-stage purposive
sampling techniques were employed to select the districts and kebeles of the study area.
Random sampling was employed to select the households. Focus group discussion and
structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 160 households. Data were
analyzed using SAS version 9 and SPSS. The study result indicated that cattle production in
the study area had significant role in socio economic condition of the farmers and being used
as a source of income, prestige of household in the community, marriage and others. More
than half of the respondents reported that Abigar cattle relatively have better level of
tolerance or resistance to most of the existing stress as compared to the other cattle breeds in
the region which ranges from 63.8% for heat tolerance to 71.2 % for withstanding feed
shortage. From the observation of the research location the common breeding system was
herd mating and natural controlled-breeding. The age at puberty for female Abigar cattle
was found to be in the range of 34 to 40 months on average and the mean age at first calving
was found to be 47.4 to 51.3 months. Average daily milk was to be 2.1± 0.2 liters. Natural
mating was the dominant breeding method and animal were selected majorly based on their
Physical appearances. According to elder and cattle owners of Lare and Jikawo, Nuer cattle
population trend were in increasing (60.6%) trend. River/Baro was the water source of the
cattle. Inaccessibility of veterinary services security, flood, cattle raiders, recurrent drought,
rangeland degradation, illegal cattle marketing was among the identified threats for the
decreasing trend of Abigar cattle in the study areas. The major animal production constraints
were animal health problem water scarcity and seasonal feed shortage. From the data the
prevalent disease in the study area are Trypanosomiasis, Anthrax, , CBPP, black leg. The
major cause of feed scarcity was lack of awareness on feed conservation methods for dry
season. Hence, this study concludes that, training and extension services on husbandry,
breeding practices health care and feed conservation technologies should be undertaken by
different stakeholders in study area.
