A survey study was conducted to analyze the reproductive and productive performances of four indigenous chicken breeds under different rearing system. Six villages located in Eastern Cape, South Africa were used for the study from July 2017 to June 2018. Data on clutch per year (CPY), hatchability (HATCH), egg per clutch (EGC), survivability at 10-12 weeks (SURV), egg per year (EPY), recovery period (RP), average age at production (AA), duration of rearing (DR), mortality, egg laying length (EGL), natural brooding period (NBP) and natural incubating period (NIP) were obtained from Seven thousand, five hundred and thirty eight (7538) indigenous chicken. Potchefstroom Kooekok is observed to be a good egg producing breed with 15.11±0.25eggs per clutch. Venda breed possess good mothering ability (hatchability) and high survivability with 86.03±0.31days and 82.70±0.26 days respectively. Naked Neck is known to be more prone to diseases with least (survivability) 60.08±0.25days. Village was positively correlated with EGC and HATCH, EGY and SURV at p≤0.01 and p≤0.05 respectively. Rearing system was positively correlated with EGC. Rearing system was positively correlated at p≤0.05 on EGC than CPY, HATCH, EGY and SURV. Breed and village interactions were significant at p≤0.05 on RP, AA, DR, EGL, NBP and NIP. Therefore, productive and reproductive traits of indigenous chicken differ across different rearing systems, breeds and villages.

Tolerance to heat stress is worth noting considering the constant increase in the ambient temperature and high productivity that elevates the likelihood of heat stress in the dairy herd. Besides exposure to hot temperatures, increase in performance of dairy cows is positively related to heat load which results in heat stress. This necessitates the need to incorporate heat tolerance in the breeding objectives. Measuring heat tolerance is still a challenge and might be complex to assess in the dairy herd. Through regressing phenotypic performance of temperature-humidity index (THI), heat tolerance can be assessed. However, the use of the same THI across region might not be effective due to the differences within and among breeds in either same or different herds. The reason being the differing cow's (Bos taurus) adaptive and productive response to increasing THI value across different areas. There is vast information about the THI values from the tropics and the temperate regions, however, there is still a gap for THI values for semi and arid places under the pasture-based system. Understanding the coping strategies by the dairy cow to heat stress is important. Various studies have outlined much on the coping strategies but there is still a need to relate the homeostatic and acclimation responses to tolerance to heat stress. This review focusses on discussing the heat stress coping strategies in relation to heat stress tolerance and the ways of assessment in a dairy herd.

A survey study was conducted to analyze the reproductive and productive performances of four indigenous chicken breeds (Potchefstroom Koekoek, Venda, Naked Neck and Ovambo) under different rearing system. Six villages located in Eastern Cape, South Africa were used for the study from July 2017 to June 2018. Data on Clutch Per Year (CPY), hatchability (HATCH), Egg Per Clutch (EGC), survivability at 10-12 weeks (SURV), Egg Per Year (EPY), Recovery Period (RP), average age at production (AA), Duration of Rearing (DR), mortality, egg laying length (EGL), Natural Brooding Period (NBP) and Natural Incubating Period (NIP) were obtained from Seven thousand, five hundred and thirty eight (7538) indigenous chicken. Four different breeds were sampled such as Venda breeds (2748), Potchefstroom Koekoek (2088), Ovambo (1838) and Naked Neck (864) breeds respectively. Potchefstroom Koekoek is observed to be a good egg producing breed with 15.11±0.25 eggs per clutch. Venda breed possess good mothering ability (hatchability) and high survivability with 86.03±0.31days and 82.70±0.26 days respectively. Naked Neck is known to be more prone to diseases with least (survivability) 60.08±0.25 days. Village was positively correlated with EGC and HATCH, EGY and SURV at p≤0.01 and p≤0.05 respectively. Rearing system was positively correlated with EGC. Rearing system was positively correlated at p≤0.05 on EGC than CPY, HATCH, EGY and SURV. Breed and village interactions were significant at p≤0.05 on RP, AA, DR, EGL, NBP and NIP. Therefore, productive and reproductive traits of indigenous chicken differ across different rearing systems, breeds and villages.

In an effort to improve the livelihood of indigenous farmers in South Africa, little input has been accorded to documentation and validation of some practices of poultry production farmers in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa which is the objective of this study. One hundred and Sixty (160) structured questionnaires were administered in six villages from two district municipalities using non-probabilistic (snowball) sampling method from July 2017 to June 2018. Results reveal that 73.1% of indigenous farmers are female, 24.38% reared mostly for household consumption, 48.1% flock ranges from 10-50. In addition, about 46.2% of farmers practiced semi-intensive rearing systems. Diseases (63.52%) and Theft (51.94%) are major challenges affecting most chickens. Most farmers used both ethno veterinary (Aloe ferox 32.5%) and medicinal drugs (Terramycin 42.5%) for treatment of diseases respectively. Correlation between diseases and housing was insignificant across different villages. The cleaning system, place of purchase and stage of purchase are highly significant across different villages. Most farming practices are positively correlated across different villages. There is need to assess farming practices adopted, this will help in proper planning and in maximizing profit across indigenous poultry production.

Throughout the world, internal parasites are a major hindrance to small ruminant production. The most common internal parasites in grazing small ruminants are likely to be gastrointestinal nematodes. They cause a reduction in live-weight gain, wool growth, poor reproductive performance, and increased production costs and thus hamper global food security. Pharmaceutical control continues to be the main measure used to manage or control internal parasites, however as the resistance of internal parasite populations spreads, the efficiency of this method in resource-limited environments becomes limited and complex. Efforts to curb production losses caused by internal parasites have led communal farmers to use other treatments such as locally available indigenous medicinal plants to control internal parasites as an alternative to pharmaceuticals. However, many medicinal plants still need to be evaluated for their efficacy and efficiency using both in vitro as well as in vivo methods. Furthermore, in many developing countries, the use of these plants is not well documented nor they are guided by certain rules and regulations to conserve them. Therefore, the objective of this review was to document various remedies prepared from medicinal plants to manage internal parasites in small ruminants. A further objective was to evaluate techniques used to determine the safety and efficacy of these plants and to suggest possible strategies to conserve such useful plants and the knowledge associated with them.