ON-FARM PHENOTYPIC CHARACTERIZATION OF LOCAL HARARGE HIGHLAND CATTLE POPULATION AND THEIR PRODUCTION SYSTEM IN EAST HARARGHE ZONE, OROMIA, ETHIOPIA

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