ASSESSEMENT OF HUSBANDRY AND BREEDING PRACTICES OF NUER COMMUNITY FOR ABIGAR CATTLE IN LARE AND JIKAWO DISTRICTS, GAMBELLA REGION, ETHIOPIA

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.