Study on phenotypic evaluation of exportable goat at Organic and Akseker abattoirs in Modjo town of central Ethiopia.

Abstract

Background: The Ethiopian livestock sector, which is mainly dominated by indigenous animal genetic resources, contributes significantly to the economy and food security of the country, providing livelihood for 37-87% of the country’s population. Conducting phenotypic characterization is a prerequisite for sustainable utilization, conservation and improvement of a breed through designing appropriate sheep breeding programs. Methods and materials: Phenotypic evaluations of indigenous goats were conducted in Organic and Akseker Export abattoirs of Modjo district of Eastern Shoa zone of central Ethiopia. A total of 200 goats from both export abattoirs were sampled randomly for phenotypic evaluations. Result: Length, weight, height, and heart girth of the animal were measured for each goat exported to both abattoirs. The results show that significantly (P<0.05) presence of clear phenotypic variations between and within these indigenous goats exportable to Akseker export abattoirs (Table 2) whereas heart girth significantly (P<0.05) increased by 20.271(CM) the length, weight (KG) and height increases by (0.163 CM), (0.256 KG) and (0.479 CM) respectively. However, there is no evidence showing any association with sex, age, body condition, and age of animals. The examined phenotypic parameters of goats exported to organic export abattoirs were measured and but there is no-showed significant (P-value >0.05) association between and within heart girth, height, and body length of the goats except for the high level of significant variations (P<0.05) between hearth girth on body weights which says when heart girth increases by 7.26 (CM) centimeters, the body weight significantly with P value (0.001) increases by 1.92 (Kg) kilograms as also indicated in Table 3. Conclusions: To sustainably utilize these goat populations the production constraints should be solved and selective community-based breeding strategies should be designed and implemented.Therefore this study was aimed at improving the community-based breeding strategies of indigenous goats and their phenotypic traits exported to export abattoirs for meat consumption.