Abstract:
An on-farm phenotypic characterization of the hararghe highland cattle population and their
production system studies were conducted in three districts of East Hararghe Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia.
Data were collected through semi-structured questionnaires, focus group discussions, field
observations, and linear body measurements (LBM). A total of 150 households were randomly selected
questionnaire survey and 450 cattle (115 male and 335 female) were sampled for morphological
description and linear body measurements. The study revealed that the average cattle herd size was
6.71±0.29 heads per household. Mixed crop-livestock system was the major production system in the
study areas. Major Sources of Income in the Household are orderly chat, livestock, crop, trade, and
employment, respectively. Natural pasture and crop by-products were major feed sources in the study
area. The purposes of keeping cattle were ranked for income generation1st, milk production 2nd, and
manure (to increase soil fertility) 3rd in all study area districts. Mating is mostly naturally uncontrolled
in all districts. Growth rate, reproductive fitness, and drought resistance were the most important
objective traits for breeding males in the Mayu Muluke district in their order of importance. In the
other districts, reproductive fitness was the most preferred trait followed by drought resistance and
growth rate in Kurfacahle and growth rate and draft power in Jarso districts, respectively, whereas for
females milk production, Mothering ability, and reproductive fitness ware most preferred objective
traits in all districts. Overall, average lactation length and milk production per cow per day was
reported to be 10.1±0.42 months and 1.33±0.06 liters, respectively. The overall age at which AFM of
female, AFC, and CI of hararghe highland cattle were estimated to be, 46.56±0.09 months,
55.56±0.061 months, and 17.33±0.67 months, respectively. Major constraints of cattle production were
feed and water shortage, disease, and market problems. The overall qualitative traits of the sample
populations across the districts are not significantly different (p>0. 05). All the quantitative variables
were highly significantly different (p-<0.01) by the age, sex, and districts of the animals except for ear
length and horn length. Male cattle were higher than female cattle due to the hormonal (testosterone)
effect. The phenotypic variation in quantitative dependant variables such as hearth girth, height at
wither, pelvic width, and tail length was significantly different (p<0.05) by sex interaction age but
body length, height at the rump, horn length, ear length, and mouth circumference were no
significantly different (p>0.05). The degree of linear association among the variables measured by the
Pearson correlation coefficient (r) and their statistical significance of r ranged from 0.21 to 0.79 for
females and from 0.13 to 0.77 for males. Among the 36 possible pairs of correlations, all 36 are
significant in males while in females 3 (between HW and EL; PW and EL; HL and TL) out of 36 are
not significant). An eigenvalue greater than 1 indicates that PC accounts for more of the variance than
one of the original variables in standardized data. Cumulatively the first two eigenvalues for both
males and females together account for 63.30 % of the variation in the dataset. These differences
among different districts of Hararghe cattle show the presence of within-breed variations which can be
useful for maintaining diversity and further selection-based genetic improvement programs