Characterization of Gofa Cattle Population, Production System, Production and Reproduction Performance in Southern Ethiopia

Morphometrical Traits and Structural Indices of Malle Cattle Reared in the South Omo Zone of Southwest Ethiopia

“…The values for the trait are however lower than those of Mursi breed/bull (Terefe et al, 2015), for Begait cattle/bull (Ftiwi and Tamir, 2015) and for Kereyu bull (Garoma, 2006). The BL in the present study is however, higher than those for Sheko breed (Taye, 2005) and Gamo Gofa cattle (Kebede et al, 2017. The average BL of Malle cows was higher than those of Sheko, Mursi and Gamo Gofa those reported by Taye (2005), Terefe et al (2015) and Kebede et al (2017), respectively. The BL is also correlated with the body weight of the cattle (Tewelde et al, 2017).…”

“…The most commonly observed coat color patterns for both sexes were plain, patchy and spotted, respectively. The frequency of the coat color patterns as observed in this study varied from results reported by Terefe et al (2015) for Mursi cattle, Aman (2018) for Arsi cattle, Tewelde et al (2017) for Begait cattle, Areb et al (2017) for Bonga cattle and Kebede et al (2017) for Gamo Gofa cattle. The differences as observed could be ascribed to the sample population and also the preferences by the respective rearers of the cattle.…”

“…The average Heart Girth (HG) of Malle cattle has higher values for age group 4 years (irrespective of sex) and have lower value when compared to those of Sheko, Mursi and Gofa cattle/breed reported by Taye (2005), Terefe et al (2015) and Kebede et al (2017), respectively. Cattle with wider chest girth usually have higher body weight as the pleural cavity houses many of the vital organs and the development of these organs influence their body weight (Tewelde et al, 2017).…”

Age at First Service and Calving, Calving Interval, Open Days, and Number of Services Per Conception of Dairy Cows Under Small Holder in Siltie Zone, Ethiopia 

“…According to the Taju (2018), the overall age at rst calving (AFC) of indigenous dairy cow was 48.9 ± 0.259 months or approximately 4 years in Dawro zone. Higher AFC was reported by Kebede et al, (2017) who reported that 4.7 ± 1.31, years for Gofa cattle. The overall estimated average age at rst calving was found to be 40.9 ± 6.6 months, of which 47 .16 ± 8.7months for indigenous dairy cows, and 37.95 ± 9.4 months for crossbreed cows, which was higher than the expected to be achieved (Taju, 2018).…”

“…According to the report of CSA (2018), from the total cattle population of the country is estimated to be about 60.39 million; the female cattle constitute about 54.68%, out of this dairy-cows are estimated to be around 6.66 million (11.03%) and 45.32% are male cattle. Dairy cows offer an important source of cash income, calories and key nutrients, and mitigate the effects of often large seasonal uctuations in availability of cereals through milk production (Aynalem et al, 2011;Kebede et al, 2017 andKasa et al, 2018). Milk is a good source of dietary fat, energy, protein and other nutrients in general and provides substantial amounts of nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, selenium, zinc, ribo avin, vitamin B12 and pantothenic acid particularly (Azage et al, 2013;Ayalew, 2017 andKiros et al, 2018).…”