A study was conducted to determine the influence of grazing management system on the foraging behaviour of steers in semiarid area of Zimbabwe. Foraging behaviour was determined through direct observations of focal animals. Four draught steers were observed in either the grazing scheme or under the traditional grazing management over the early, mid and late rainy seasons. Grazing was found to be the most dominant foraging activity under the two grazing systems. The time spent grazing was significantly (P<0.05) affected by the interaction between grazing management system and season. As the season progressed, grazing time increased for animals in grazing schemes. In grazing schemes, browsing was strongly marked during the early and late rainy seasons. The time spent by animals walking was higher (P<0.05) for steers under the traditional system. Other idling activities, such as drinking water were curtailed in grazing schemes due to the absence of watering points in some paddocks. These findings suggest that grazing schemes tended to limit foraging activities, possibly due to limited range resources. The ability of cattle under traditional grazing system to switch effectively among different patches might have contributed to their foraging activities.

Study sought to phenotypically characterise indigenous chickens in Rushinga district. Samples were drawn from three wards with the highest number of chickens. Purposive sampling was initially carried to select indigenous chicken farmers followed by snowball sampling to identify more farmers with at least ten adult chickens. A total of 65 questionnaires were administered randomly to assess on production environment. Data was analysed using SPSS version 16 for frequencies, descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of variance to differentiate chicken populations in wards on quantitative traits. The study showed that more females (67.7%) where involved in indigenous chicken production compared to males (32.3%). Mean flock size was 23.07 and flock composition was mainly characterized by chicks, pullets and cockerels. Neck lengths, shank length, comb height, wattle length and wing span were significantly different amongst all wards (p < 0.05). Pelvic width; back length; body circumference, body weight and body length, were similar in all the wards investigated. Production environment in Rushinga is characterized by resource poor farmers who rely on erratic rain fed farming for income. Phenotypically, chickens exert adaptive characteristics to harsh climatic and production environment. There is need to design and implement a national research program to collect, conserve and improve indigenous chicken breeds. Indigenous chickens (Gallus domestica) accounts for about 80% of the world's poultry population and 90% are in developing countries [1]. Generally kept under scavenging production systems, with limited resources [2]. Most of the breeds are well adapted to the local climatic conditions, scarce feed resources, and are highly disease tolerant [3]. Indigenous chickens play an integral role in smallholder farming systems [4] as they are used to meet the multiple household, socio cultural and economic needs

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