EVALUATION OF COMMUNITY-BASED SHEEP GENETIC IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM IN HORRO DISTRICT, HORRO GUDURU WOLLEGA ZONE, OROMIA REGION, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The study was conducted in Horro district on farmers’ flocks of Horro sheep community based sheep breeding program (CBBP) to evaluate productive performances and estimate the genetic parameter in Horro sheep in Ethiopia. A total of 2480 birth weight (BWt), 2441 three month weight (3MWt), 770 six-month weight (6MWt), 307 for both lambing interval (LI), and annual reproductive rates (ARR) traits produced from 1398 ewes,101 rams were used. The least-squares means analysis was performed using the general linear model procedure of SAS 2016 (SAS, Version 9.4) to determine the effects of fixed factors.Variance components and genetic parameters were estimated for growth traits: Birth weight (BWt), three-month weight (3MWt), six-month weight (6MWt), and reproductive rates: Annual reproductive rates (ARR) and lambing interval (LI) using VCE 2.4.6 under multivariate analysis. Multivariate genetic analysis was used to estimate the genetic correlation amongtraits. The overall least-square means of BWt, 3MWt, 6MWt, LI, and ARR were 2.76±0.01, 12.33±0.03, 16.57±0.07, 8.13±0.06, and 2.02±0.02, respectively. Estimates of direct heritability obtained from the animal model were 0.16±0.01, 0.19±0.02, 0.28±0.35, 0.01±0.01 and 0.01±0.02 for BWt, 3MWt 6MWt, ARR and LI respectively. The genetic correlation between BWt and 3MWt, BWt and 6MWt, and 3MWt and 6MWt were 0.04, 0.01, and 0.07, respectively. The least square mean flock size of the study areas was 15.09±0.43/household (ranging from 7 to 33). The proportion of male to female breeding ram and ewe was 1:6..The numbers of non ear-tagged animals between the two kebeles in the present study were significant at p<0.05, for laku 1.76±0.23 and Gitilo 2.65±0.21 respectively. The overall mean flock size of CBBP participants and non CBBP participants across the two cooperatives were 15.09±4.8 and 9.98±2.47 respectively significant (p<0.05). All essential start-up elements of the breeding programme were in place. In generar significant gains are been made at flock level in key breeding goal traits forinistance the breeding value of the flock of the two cooperatives indicat that there were meaning ful genetic progress in Horro CBBP driving meaningful benefit to the participant community. However interruption of pedigree and performance data recording, less male to female ratio, genetic dilution due to unclear separation of the flock of CBBP from non-CBBP flock and weak relationship amongovernment institutions (research, cooperative and extension) were observed, and needs more attention towards solving these issues. I also found that feed shortage and disease prvelence has been affecting the breeding programme.