ASSESSMENT OF PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION AND ITS EFFICIENCY EVALUATION IN SMALLHOLDER DAIRY FARMS OF WEST WALLAGA ZONE, OROMIA ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The study was conducted in purposively selected three districts of the West Wallaga zone based on the utilization of AI to assess the major problems of artificial insemination service and its efficiency evaluation in smallholder dairy farmers. Cross-sectional and retrospective study designs were used and a questionnaire survey was prepared for 222 smallholders, 40 animal health professionals, and 30 Artificial insemination technicians were asked about problems of AI services accordingly. Data were analyzed by using JMP pro.16. Among the respondents, 38.5%, 24.32%, and 35.90% used AI service regularly without interruption in Gimbi, Lalo Asabi, and Najo respectively and 61.43%, 75.68%, and 64.10% in respective district didn’t get the service regularly due to discontinuation of service on weekends and holidays, long distance to get the service, shortage of artificial insemination technician, shortage of input. Regarding their level of satisfaction, the majority of the respondents were unsatisfied with the overall AI service in the study area due to different problems including, conception failure (40.32%), heat detection problems (35.48%), insufficiency support from the concerned body (16.13%) and AIT problem (8.05%) for Gimbi. The respective values for Lalo Asabi and Najo were 44.93%, 26.309%, 17.39%, 11.59 and 46.48%, 33.8%, 14.08% and 5.63 respectively. The majority of the animal health professionals revealed that they did not get on-the-job training. On top of that, fifty percent of the AIT did not provide service on weekends and holidays in all districts. The effect of age, parity, and breed on the reproductive performance of cows showed that the breed has a significant effect on reproductive performance at (p-value 0.0001) while age and parity did not. From retrospective data, the number of conceptions increased from 17.3% in 2019 to 23.9% in 2022, and not conceived decreased from 4% in 2019 to 3% in 2022 in Lalo Asabi. In the same way in Gimbi, the conception number increased from 19.8% in 2019 to 22% in 2022, and not conceived increased from 2.6% in 2019 to 4% in 2022. In Najo number of conceived increased from 17.2% in 2019 to 19.3% in 2022 while not conceived increased from 5.1 in 2019 to 8.5% in 2022. The percentage of healthy calf births increased from 19.3% in 2019 to 22.4% in 2022 in Gimbi while it increased from 18.8% in 2019 to 24% in 2022 Lalo Asabi and increased from 19.9% in 2019 to 21% in 2022 for Najo district. Regular training should be given to animal owners and AI technicians on overall AI services as a means of resolving problems. All concerned bodies (government and NGO) should take responsibility for supporting AI services in the study area and AI input should be supplied timely