Community-based characterization of woyto-guji goat in loma district, southern nations nationalities and peoples regional state of Ethiopia

Community based Participatory characterization of Woyto-Guji goat population in the Loma district was undertaken to identify breeding objectives and trait preferences, document indigenous knowledge, traditional breeding system and husbandry practice, characterize morphologically Woyto-Guji goat breed in its environment. The district has been stratified in to lowland, midland and highland agro ecologies for this study. Semi-structured questionnaires, PRA tools, field observations, recording morphological characters (body weight and linear body measurements) were employed to collect the data. Descriptive, ranking and inferential statistics were employed to handle survey, qualitative and quantitative data, respectively. The result showed that the overall mean family size per household was 7.75+2.90. The overall mean flock size of goat were 15.47±14.40. The rate of change in inbreeding coefficient per generation when flock is not mixed in lowland, midland and highland were 0.057, 0.068 and 0.075, respectively. Goats were kept for multifaceted purposes ranging from products like meat and live-sale to functions in socio-cultural, milk, financial and ritual state of affairs. The goat production could be improved through exploring the indigenous knowledge in husbandry practices and genetic improvement strategy that considered producers trait preference, breeding objectives and active involvement of the community. The overall index of Body conformation, twining ability, adaptation traits and coat colors of female goat were reason of selection with ranked first, second, third and fourth with index 0.21, 0.18, 0.17, 0.16 in the study area. Body conformation, adaptation and coat color factors were mentioned as high status reasons for choice trait of male goats with ranking first, second and third preferred factors with overall index 0.32, 0.27 and 0.21. The 91.2% goat showed plain colour patterns, 6.3% patched whileas 2.5 were spotted. The head profile exhibited was straight (80.6%), slightly convex (15.2%) and concave (4.2%). The goat population showed either semi-pendulous (69.8%) or horizontal (30.3%) ear type. However, the ear formation was either long ear (97.0%), short ear (2.3%) and rudimentary (0.4%). AFS of female were 8.6±1.37; 8.36±2.46 and 8.6±1.82 month in lowland, midland and highland, respectively and the corresponding age for male were 9.06±3.58, 8.39±2.62 and 10.2±2.92 months respectively. The PI was 7.70±1.85month in highland, 7.27±1.59 month in midland and 7.48±1.66 month in lowland. Litter size of 2.23±1.22, 2.22±1.11 and 1.8±0.9 was observed in lowland, midland and highland, respectively. Disease, labor, land, feed shortage were ranked the first, second, third and fourth major constraints for goat production in the study area with index of 0.31, 0.21, 0.14 and 0.14, respectively. Sex, age and agro ecology had a significant (p<0.001) effect on body weight and most of the body measurements. The mean BWT, BC, BL, HG, HW, CW, PW, RH, RL, EL and HL of females are 26.53±2.91kg, 3.01±0.45, 57.48±0.64cm, 70.20±0.21cm, 64.12±0.18cm, 13.74±0.07cm, 13.20±0.19cm, 66.04±0.52cm, 11.97±0.13cm, 13.74±0.16cm and 11.20±0.10cm respectively. The corresponding values for male counterpart were 27.16± 0.70 kg, 3.31± 0.01, 60.13± 1.17cm, 74.98± 0.33cm, 68.34± 0.05cm, 14.48± 0.41cm, 13.25± 0.37cm, 68.37± 0.50cm, 12.83± 0.43cm, 14.02± 0.020cm and 13.22± 0.47cm respectively. Most of the body measurements had positive and high correlation with the body weight and heart girth showed the highest and positive correlation with body weight. HG has been selected across all age groups for both sexes as the first regressor with R2=0.68; y=0.74x -28.20; R2=0.78; y=0.88x -39.12 for female and male pooled data (0PPI to 4PPI). This finding indicated that an increase of one cm of HG resulted in an increase of 0.74 and 0.88 kg of live weight, respectively. Eigen value of principal components of one and two were 7.00551756 and 1.0472258 with difference of 5.9583 and 0.207569 respectively. The dendrograms of female and male goat breeds showed that lowland and midland breeds have relatively similar than that of highland breed