This offers an opportunity for farmers to increase their income by timely supplying and targeting appropriate market. Northwestern lowland of Amhara region is among the potential areas in livestock production and consequently in the supply of live animals to the Sudan market. The sheep population of the country is diverse consisting of about 14 sheep types in six major groups and nine breeds. Ethiopia possess many adapted indigenous sheep breeds, which are important components of smallholder livestock production systems in Ethiopia. Importance of sheep in the national economy of Ethiopia was also boosted by both domestic and international markets. The demand for sheep mutton has increased due to increased human population and urbanization.
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They also serve as a means of risk mitigation during crop failures and monitory saving in addition to their sociocultural and ceremonial purposes.
CENTRAL SHEEP BREEDING FARM SKIN
They provide cash income, food (meat and milk), skin and manure for their keepers. Because of their unique adaptation to marginal environments with low level of input, indigenous sheep contributes much for sustaining rural livelihoods by producing a wide range of products. Sheep production is an important component of livestock sector to address food insecurity and reduce poverty among smallholder farmers in the developing countries like Ethiopia. This suggested the possibility for sustainable Gumz sheep improvement and conservation through village-based schemes and estrous synchronization. The expected genetic gains and profits were higher as it promotes participation of farmers and achieving concentrated lambing which in turn increase selection intensity and genetic progress. Village-based scheme with estrous synchronization was the best option. However, this scheme requires establishing a very large central nucleus flocks. ConclusionĬentral nucleus-based schemes resulted in the highest genetic gain and economic efficiencies in all breeding objectives compared to village-based schemes. The genetic gain in the proportion of lambs weaned per ewe was comparable across central nucleus-based scheme but little differed in village-based schemes and ranged from 0.0015 to 0.0016%. The annual genetic gain per year in number of lambs born per ewe bred ranged from 0.0017 to 0.0036% in both village- and central nucleus-based scheme. The annual genetic gains per year in 6-month weight (kg) were differed across schemes and ranged from 0.154 to 0.171 in village-based scheme, and 0.334 to 0.336 in central-based schemes. The schemes were scheme-1: a village-based breeding scheme with existing lambing, scheme-2: a village-based scheme with improved lambing, scheme-3: central nucleus-based scheme with 5% nucleus size and scheme-4: central nucleus-based scheme with 10% nucleus size. In this paper, two village-based and two central nucleus-based sheep breeding schemes were modeled and evaluated in terms of their biological and economic efficiencies. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare alternative breeding program designs to improve productivity of Gumz sheep for sustainable utilization and conservation of genetic resource. Genetic improvement in livestock in developing countries like Ethiopia remains challenging selection-based breeding schemes have the potential to provide resource-poor producers with access to improved animals that could ensure increased productivity of animals and hence contribute to reduced poverty.
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