Describing the Traditional Breeding Practices f or Improvement of Genetics o f Indigenous Goat Populations in South Gondar, Ethiopia

The study was conducted to describe the breeding objectives, selection criteria, and breeding practices for improvement of genetics of indigenous goat populations in South Gondar. To this effect, 3 districts (Farta, Fogera, and Libokemkem) were selected purposely based on distribution of goat population. Data were collected from 153 randomly selected households and gathered through semi-structured questionnaires, focus group discussions, and field observations. The results indicated that the overall mean of young bucks and does was 7.9% and 10.5%, respectively. The mean number of breeding does per household was 4.55, 5.12, and 5.8 in Farta, Fogera, and Libo-kemkem districts, respectively. The average flock size per household for Fogera, Farta, and Libokemkem was 9.2, 10.5, and 11.7 with an overall average of 10.5 goats. Income generation, meat consumption, and saving ranked first, second, and third, respectively for the reason of goat rearing in all districts. About 62.7 % of the respondents owned breeding bucks of which 70.8 % of them were born in the flock. The overall selection criteria of bucks were early maturity, coat color, and appearance with index values of 0.22, 0.2, and 0.19, respectively. Selection criteria of does were appearance, sexual maturity, and litter size with index values of 0.2, 0.19, and 0.14, respectively. About 95% of the households exercise uncontrolled mating. The results concluded that breeding does in south Gondar represented the largest proportion of goats and covered 49.8% of the total population of goats followed by kids of both sexes. Goat breeding practiced in the study area was traditional, keeping them primarily for income generation. The breeding system of the goat was characterized by uncontrolled mating which would lead to the occurrence of inbreeding depression in small flocks.