On farm Phenotypic Characterization of Indigenous Sheep Breeds within Their Production Systems in Meket and Gidan District, North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia

T. Demeke¹ , T. Getachew² , E. Bayou³

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.6 , Issue.2 , pp.29-39, Feb-2020

Online published on Feb 28, 2020

Copyright © T. Demeke, T. Getachew, E. Bayou . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
The study was conducted to generate comprehensive information on physical characteristics of indigenous sheep breed in Meket and Gidan district of North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia. The most frequently observed coat color pattern of Sheep was plain 70.8% and 69% and the most dominantly observed coat color type of sheep was black 25.9% and dark red 41.3% for Meket and Gidan district, respectively. The majority of male sheep in the study area were horned (87.2%). Majority of the sampled Sheep population has semi-pendulous (61.7%) ear orientation. The average observed, body length, heart girth, wither height, rump height, rump length, ear length, tail length, for male Sheep in the study area was 66.45±0.27, 76.01±0.28, 65.93±0.24, 66.42±0.22, 20.1±0.08, 8.09±0.3 and 23.33±0.31 cm, respectively for male and 61.83±0.14, 63.00±0.12, 65.78±0.11, 19.48±0.04, 8.17±0.16 and 19.41±0.16 cm, respectively for female sheep. Male and female sheep in the study area weighted about 32.85 kg and 27.95 kg, respectively. Sex, age, district and agro-ecology had a significant effect on body weight and many of the body measurements. Positive and highly significant (P<0.05) correlation were observed between body weight and most of the body measurements. Heart girth was found to be the most important variables for estimation of body weight in Sheep. Therefore, this finding was put baseline for understanding about physical characteristics of Sheep and serve as a base for designing a sustainable breeding programme and selection strategies in the study area.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Indigenous sheep, North Wollo, Phenotypic characterization

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