Longitudinal Study on Reproductive and Productive Performances of Smallholder Crossbred Dairy Cattle in and Around Wolaita Sodo, Snnpr, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess the reproductive and productive performances of smallholder crossbred dairy farms in Wolaita Sodo town of Southern Ethiopia. Twelve smallholder crossbred dairy cattle farms were studied longitudinally for two years. Almost all of the farms were intensively managed and basic farm management practices with acceptable animal health and artificial insemination services from the nearby animal health care organization had been practiced. However, professional assisted pregnancy diagnosis and farm animal record keeping were less experienced. The overall means and standard error (M ± SE) of age at first calving, calving interval, calving to conception interval and number of services per conception were 37.5 ± 0.6 months, 518.0 ± 22.5 days, 253.9 ± 22.6 days and 2.1 ± 0.2, respectively. Among independent variables considered in the study only farm size had significant influence on age at first calving (P<0.05). The mean of average daily milk yield, lactation length and lactation milk yield were estimated to be 8.32 ± 0.6 liter, 423.79 ± 16 days and 3534.16 ± 311 kg/cow, respectively. Generally, the observed reproductive and productive indices showed poor performances which are below the recommendations of crossbred smallholder dairy farming in the tropics. Several reproductive health problems were prevalent in the study area with mastitis being the most prevalent. Accordingly, training on managemental aspects of dairy farming and extension services to enhance production and reproduction is needed. Furthermore, detailed investigation is necessary to identify and quantify the factors that affect the reproductive and productive performances.