TRADITIONAL SHEEP HUSBANDRY PRACTICES AND ESTMATION OF FEED SUPPLY IN GERESSIE ZURIA DISTRICT OF GAMO ZONE, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to assess traditional sheep husbandry practices and estimation of feed supply in different agro ecologies of Geressie Zuria district of Gamo Zone, Southern Ethiopia. The district was selected purposively based on its high potential for sheep production. It was stratified into three distinctive agro-ecologies, namely highland, midland and lowland. A total of 138 households were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Probability proportional to size sampling technique was followed to select respondents. A focus group discussion composed of 9 members of key informants was made in the selected six local administrations’. The study collected both primary and secondary data. Structured questionnaire, field survey and focus group discussion were used to collect primary data on sheep feed estimation measure, husbandry practices and productivity. Feed supply was estimated from different feed resources and Sheep feed demand for a given year was calculated based on TLU values in the agro-ecologies. Conversion factors were used to quantify each feed resource per a year in the district. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 25 software packages. One-way analysis of variance (One-way ANOVA) was used for means comparison of the continuous data, whereas Statistical variations for categorical data were tested by means of crosstabs (chi-square), with significant differences at P<0.05 and crosstab (Pearson’s correlation) was made to compute the relationship between two means while the descriptive statistics for the numerical data was analyzed using the general linear model procedure of SPSS. The study revealed that the overall average total land size of respondents in highland, midland and lowland were 1.88, 0.95 and 1.68 hectares, respectively (P<0.05). The average sheep flock size per household was 12.69, 7.31 and 9.24 in HL, ML and LL, respectively. The overall purpose of sheep rearing across all AEZs was for source of income, saving, meat production, manure production and for breeding with 0.48, 0.17, 0.15, 0.10, and 0.10 respective overall proportional indices. 78.3% of total respondents keep their sheep in separate houses and 21.7% within family house. Around 44.2% of the respondents use Bonga and 31.2% selected best performance local rams for mating. The overall age at first lambing and lambing interval was 13.49±0.092 and 8.08±0.082 months for local sheep P<0.05). Birth and weaning weight were 2.05±0.083, 21.44±0.747 for males and 1.76±0.096, 19.8±0.893 for females respectively. Natural pastures, crop residues, grazing aftermath, road side and house stead tethering, and private pasture grazing were the available feed resources in the study area. Feeding systems widely practiced in the AEZs were tethering and free grazing. Sheep were grazing in the field alone or together with other livestock species. The total dry matter (DM production of feed from pasture, crop residues, crop aftermath, foliage of fodder trees and shrubs and non-conventional sources in the study area was 252,655.18 tons per year. The total feed DM requirement for 212,350.4 TLU is 484,424.35 tons per year (2023). From the total tropical livestock units (TLU) of the district, sheep accounts about 12,210.3 TLU and requires 27,854.7 tons of feed annually. The DM produced per year in the district can only supply the sheep for exactly 7 months and 17 days; in the rest of the year, sheep suffer from feed shortage. The major reported production constraints were feed shortage, disease and parasite prevalence, awareness gap and weak extension services. Therefore, introduction and use of best feeding practices, alternative feed production technologies, conservation techniques, strengthening selective mating, separate housing and health care management practices, are highly recommended.