The study was conducted to assess constraints and village chicken production system in Lemo district, southern Ethiopia, using questionnaire on 90 households. The mean flock size was 13.24 ± 16.65. The dominant chicken production system in the study area was extensive system (90.0%) with scavenging and seasonal supplementary feeding (95.6%) of homegrown grains. The 84.4% of respondent provide water for chicken and 76.7% of the respondents do not construct a separate house to their chickens. The objectives of chicken production in the study area were sources of income (55.6%) and followed by home consumption (13.3%) and both consumption and income (26.7%). The average age at first egg and sexual maturity of female and male were 22.93 ± 0.22 and 23.18 ± 0.32 weeks, respectively. The average egg production per clutch in the study area was 14.9 ± 0.23 with a mean of 4.14 ± 0.06 clutches per year. The overall mean annual egg production was 56.61 eggs/hen/year. The average number of eggs per set and number of chicks hatched per set in the study area were 11.18 and 9.33, respectively. The main constraints of scavenging chicken production were diseases (57.8%), predator (21.1%), feed shortage (16.7%) and lack of improved breed (4.4%). It was concluded that efforts should be made to improvement health care, husbandry practice, and extension service and breeding to increase productivity of chicken at village management system.

The objective of this paper is to review the effects of quality and amounts of dietary protein on dairy cattle reproduction and the environment. Protein supplementation is one of important nutrient in dairy production. But, an excess amount of protein beyond the requirements of dairy cow affects reproduction as well as the environment. Protein is needed to meet nitrogen requirements of rumen microorganisms as well as used as a direct source of protein for milking cows. An excess amount of rumen degradable protein can be excreted into the environments and impose an impact on it. Excess rumen degradable protein also results in high amounts of ammonia in the blood of dairy cow when there is no sufficient amount of energy to convert ammonia into microbial protein. In addition, conversion of excess ammonia is energy demanding which can result in negative energy balance. This excess ammonia and negative energy balance result in reduced reproductive performance in dairy cows. Therefore, it is important to optimize rumen degradable and rumen undegradable protein content of diets and synchronization of protein with energy is best strategies to overawed ammonia pollution and reproductive problem in the dairy cows.

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The aim of this paper was to review the effects of hydroponic fodder feeding on milk yield and composition of the dairy cow. Hydroponic fodder is an effective solution for fodder scarcity and is very promising for sustainable livestock production in different regions of the world. Hydroponics fodder production involves growing of plants without soil for a short duration (5-10 day). In hydroponic fodder production system, it can be possible to grow 5-10kg of green fodder from 1kg seeds. The nutritional increase in crude protein, fibre, ether extract, vitamins and minerals were constantly observed in hydroponic fodder. However, there was a loss of 10-25% dry matter content depending on grain type and duration. The hydroponics fodder feeding improves milk yield and composition of a dairy cow through increased intake and digestibility of nutrients. However, more information is needed to confirm the benefit of hydroponic fodder feeding as part of ration for dairy cow.