Assessment of sheep fattening practices under smallholder farmers in Genji district of West Wollega, Western Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Assessment of sheep fattening practices under smallholder farmers in Genji district of West Wollega, Western Oromia, Ethiopia Diriba Taye, Zemene Worku, Solomon Demeke and Monenus Etefa Abstract This study was conducted in Genji district to assess sheep fattening practice, under small holder farmers in the district. The study area was stratified into midland and lowland agro ecologies followed by purposive selection of five villages based on sheep production potential and accessibility. A total of 183 households (HHs) were randomly selected from sheep producers (126 and 57 from midland and lowland agro ecologies, respectively). Each HH was interviewed with a semi-structured pretested questionnaire to collect data regarding fattening practices. Significance of difference is declared at (p<0.05). In the study area, only 45.4% of the respondents keeping sheep were involved in sheep fattening. Extensive fattening was the predominant fattening system where Horro breed sheep were fattened by free grazing system with occasional supplementation by locally available feed stuffs. The sources of fattening sheep in the study area were own farm get (75.9%), market (16.9%), loan (6.0%) and gift (1.2%). The fattening period takes about 3 months after which decision to sell is made based on body condition and upcoming potential market. The most common type of sheep preferred for fattening in the study area was uncastrated ram (86.7%), followed by unproductive sheep (9.6%), castrated ram (2.4%) and old ewes (1.2%). It can be concluded that in Genji district, sheep fattening can be an important livelihood activity for small holder farmers due to availability of sheep and shorter period of fattening that needs to be initiated so as to increase sheep fattening productivity. Keywords: