REPRODUCTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE …

1 , (1)2012:58-63 ISSN2250-357958 REPRODUCTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE performance OF DAIRYCATTLE IN CENTRAL ZONE OF TIGRAY, NORTHERN ETHIOPIAaGebrekidan Tesfay Weldeslasse,bZeleke Mekuriaw Zeleke andcGangwar, of Animal Science Collegeof Agriculture, Aksum University, Aksum, EthiopiabDeptt. of Animal Science Collegeof Agriculture, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, EthiopiacDeptt. of Animal, Rangeland and wildlife Sciences, Collegeof Agriculture,Mekelle University, Mekelle, EthiopiaABSTRACTThe purpose of this study wasto explore the REPRODUCTIVE and PRODUCTIVE performances of dairy cattle in central TigrayZone, Northern Ethiopia. A total of 160 dairy holding households were selected by systematic random sampling techniquefor the study. The age at first calving, calving interval and lactation length for the exotic breed cows was and respectively, for the urban areas and and ,respectively, in the peri-urban areas.

2 Hence, the higher grade exotic cows performed significantly (P< ) better in termsof age at first calving, calving interval and lactation length in the urban areas than the peri-urban areas. But no significantdifference was obtained in these REPRODUCTIVE parameters for the local cows across the location. The average daily milkyield of exotic cows and for the urban and peri-urban areas respectively. In addition to this, theaverage daily milk yield of local cows was and for the urban and peri-urban areas , the average daily milk yieldof both local and exotic cows indicated significantly higher in the urban areas thanthe peri-urban areas. Consequently, training and awareness creation should be given particularly to the peri-urban farmersto increase the REPRODUCTIVE and/or productiveperformances of the dairy cattle and livelihood of the dairy WORDS:Urban; peri-urban; farm size;Dairy cattle; REPRODUCTIVE ; PRODUCTIVE performanceINTRODUCTIONThe urban and peri-urban dairy production has beendeveloped in response to thefast growing demand for milkand milk products.

3 During the past two decades, rapidlyincreasing urban population has created better markets andgrowth of demand for dairy products. Currently, the priceof milk in major towns of northern Ethiopia, includingthestudy area, has increased from 3 to 6 Ethiopian birr (ETB)per liter over the last two years. Moreover, comparableincrease in prices of processed dairy products such asbutter, hard cheese and fermented milk has been observedin the region(Negussie,2006). This situation is anopportunity and potential for development of milkproduction and processing industry in urban and peri-urban areas of the , little research efforts have been made inEthiopia in general and in central Tigray in particular onurban and peri-urban areas as most of the efforts aredirected towards rural agricultural activities.

4 The fewstudies made so far are concentrated in and around AddisAbaba, the capital city of the country. This has led tooverlooking urban and peri-urban dairying fromincorporating into the country s research agenda and to theoverall agricultural development program. This picture hasto be changed as urban dairying is becoming an importantagricultural activity around major urban and , in order to design relevant dairydevelopment strategies and implement context specificinterventions for future development of the urban and peri-urban dairying, performance evaluation of existingdairying is important. The scientificinformation regardingthe aforementioned parameters helps as a starting point forfurther development endeavors in dairy enterprise in thenation. Therefore, this study was instigated to explore thereproductive and PRODUCTIVE performances of dairy cattlein urban and peri-urban areas of central Tigray Zone,Northern AND METHODSThe study was carried out in central zone of Tigray region,Northern Ethiopia.

5 The Central Tigray Zone is one of thefive zones in Tigray National Regional State. The zoneapproximately extends between 13o15 and 14o39 Northlatitude, and 38o34 and 39o25 East longitude. Thealtitude of the zone mainly falls within the category of2000 to 3000 masl. The larger part of the zone receivesmean annual rainfall ranging from 400 to 800mm. Themean monthly maximum and minimum temperatures ofthe zone are 30oCand 10oC, respectively (NMSA, 1996).Central Tigray zone is bounded by Eritrea in the north,East Tigray zone in the East and south east, West Tigrayzone in thewest and Amhara National Regional State inthe south. The zone with its capital in the ancient city ofAksum encompasses ten woredas. The zone has the largesthuman population in the region.

6 The specific study siteswere Adwa & Aksum urban and peri-urbanareas with1006 & 1024 kilometers far from Addis Ababa,respectively. These two districts were selected purposivelyReproductive and PRODUCTIVE performance of dairy cattle in central zone59based on their conducive agro-ecological conditions fordairy production and for existence of large cross-sectional survey was used in order tocollect data on REPRODUCTIVE and/or productiveperformances of the dairy cattle. Pre-tested formalquestionnaire was used in the cross sectional survey. Thecollected data included age at first calving, calvinginterval, lactation length, average daily milk yield per cowper day. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in thecross-sectional survey. First, cattle holding householdswere clustered in to urban and peri-urban.

7 Aksum andAdwa, the larger towns in the zone, were considered asurban. The smaller towns of Wukro, Dura, and Mahiber-selam are found around Aksum. The remaining smalltowns of Bete-Hanis, Debre-genet and Gendebta andMariam-shewito are found around Adwa. These smalltowns found within a radius of 20km from the centers ofthe two larger towns. Hence the small towns wereconsidered as peri-urban. Then farms were categorized into large (> 10 dairy cattle), medium (5-10 dairy cattle) andsmall (<5 dairy cattle) according to the guideline of IRLI(1996). Finally, based on the sampling frame obtainedfrom the district office of Agriculture, a total of 160 cattleholding households were chosen using systematic randomsampling technique (Table1). Analysis of variance(ANOVA) and t-test were employed to analyze the datausing SPSS (SPSS, 2007) Sample households with respect to location (urban and peri-urban) and farm size (large, medium and small)LocationFarm sizeTotalLargeMediumSmallUrbanAxum915164 0 Adwa7132040 Total16283680 Peri-urbanAxum093140 Adwa5112440 Total5205580 Total214891160 Table 2.

8 Average AFC, CI and LL across the different locations in the study areaParametersvariablesUrbanPeri-urbanp- valueMean Age at first calving (Year) CI= Calving interval (Year) LL= Lactation length (months) standard deviationRESULTS AND DISCUSSIONR eproductive and PRODUCTIVE performance of DairyCattleAge at first calvingIt is the period between birth and first calving andinfluences both the PRODUCTIVE and REPRODUCTIVE life of thefemale, directly through its effect on her lifetime calf cropand milk production and indirectlythrough its influenceon the cost invested for up-bringing (Perera, 1996).Theaverage age at first calving in this study found to beinsignificant (P> ) for the local breed as well as theircrosses across the locations whereas the high-grade exoticcows showed significantly (P< ) longer age at firstcalving in peri-urban areas than urban areas (Table 2).

9 Similar to the locations, the age at first calving was alsoindicated no significance difference (P> ) for the localand their crosses amongthe farm sizes. But the age at firstcalving for the exotic breeds indicated significantly(P< ) longer in the small farms than the large andmedium farms (Table 3). The value obtained in the currentstudy is less than the average value reported byTesfaye(2007)in Metema district,Negussie (2006)in Mekelle cityand Addisu (2003) in Metekel ranch. But there issimilarity with the mean age at first calving (29 ), ranging from in large peri-urban in secondary town dairy farms in Addis Ababamilk shed(Yoseph, 1999).The shorter age at first calvingin urban areas and larger farms might be due to betteroverall management in the larger farms found in urbanareas.

10 Hence, efficient heat detection and timelyinsemination as well as supplementing the poor qualityfeeds may improve the age at first calving, especially forthe peri-urban , (1)2012:58-63 ISSN2250-357960 TABLE 3. Least Square Means (LSM) and standard deviation (SD) for the average AFC, CI and LL across the differentfarms sizesLargeMediumSmallp-valueParametersva riablesMean .DMean each row, values followed by the same superscript letter, do not differfrom each other significantly (P> ).Calving intervalIt is the period between successive parturitions and shouldideally be one year long. In the present study, calvinginterval (CI) for local cattle did not differed significantly(P> ) across thelocations. However, CI found to besignificantly (P< ) longer in peri-urban areas than inthe urban areas for both crossbred and high grade exoticbreeds (Table 2).