Comparison of breeding systems by smallholder goat keepers in the humid, sub-humid and semi arid agro-ecological zones of Uganda
No Thumbnail Available
Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Medwell Journals
Abstract
Description
This research paper is part of an MSc. Thesis of the first author.
A study was conducted in three districts (Sembabule, Soroti and Arua) to characterise the goat breeding practices in Uganda. A set of detailed structured questionnaires was used to collect information from 160 goat owners in one-visit-interviews. Results indicated that 57.5% of farmers in Sembabule showed livestock as their main activity, while none from Soroti or Arua indicated entirely livestock. Women and children play a substantial part with regards to routine management activities but have little control on decision making. Goats were mainly acquired by buying, while removal was by selling. Goats were ranked second behind cattle in importance. Goats have multi-functional roles, though mainly kept as a regular income source in all the three districts. Mating was generally natural and uncontrolled. In each village, <20% of the goat farmers kept their own bucks. Breeding does were selected mainly because of performance, birth type and body size, while bucks were chosen mainly on the basis of growth rate and body size across all districts. There seems to be a non quantifiable level of inbreeding depicted by the long duration (of up to 4 years) buck owners stay with their breeding bucks coupled with the poor record keeping. Tolerance to disease was the only adaptive trait merely reported as a little considered trait as they tended to consider such traits as naturally given to indigenous livestock. Although, majority of the goats kept were indigenous, there appears a clear trend from pure indigenous towards cross-breeds. Though from different ecological zones, goat keepers from Uganda seem to have similar realistic breeding strategies.
A study was conducted in three districts (Sembabule, Soroti and Arua) to characterise the goat breeding practices in Uganda. A set of detailed structured questionnaires was used to collect information from 160 goat owners in one-visit-interviews. Results indicated that 57.5% of farmers in Sembabule showed livestock as their main activity, while none from Soroti or Arua indicated entirely livestock. Women and children play a substantial part with regards to routine management activities but have little control on decision making. Goats were mainly acquired by buying, while removal was by selling. Goats were ranked second behind cattle in importance. Goats have multi-functional roles, though mainly kept as a regular income source in all the three districts. Mating was generally natural and uncontrolled. In each village, <20% of the goat farmers kept their own bucks. Breeding does were selected mainly because of performance, birth type and body size, while bucks were chosen mainly on the basis of growth rate and body size across all districts. There seems to be a non quantifiable level of inbreeding depicted by the long duration (of up to 4 years) buck owners stay with their breeding bucks coupled with the poor record keeping. Tolerance to disease was the only adaptive trait merely reported as a little considered trait as they tended to consider such traits as naturally given to indigenous livestock. Although, majority of the goats kept were indigenous, there appears a clear trend from pure indigenous towards cross-breeds. Though from different ecological zones, goat keepers from Uganda seem to have similar realistic breeding strategies.
Keywords
Breeding systems, Goat keepers, Ecological zones, Uganda, Goats, Smallholder farmers, Livestock, Goat rearing, Goat breeding