Participatory definition of trait preferences and breeding practices of goats in Aba'ala, Afar region: as input for designing genetic improvement program.

A farmer participatory approach was used to identify trait preferences and breeding practices for Afar goat population in Aba'ala district, Afar region, Ethiopia. A rapid field survey followed by purposive sampling was used to identify research sites and 90 households representing agro-pastoral and pastoral production systems were selected purposively. Data were obtained from individual interview, own-flock ranking experiment, and secondary sources. Data management and analysis was done using MS-Excel and SPSS statistical software. The current findings show that goats were primarily kept for milk production (I = 0.33) followed by income generation (I = 0.27) and meat production (I = 0.17) in both production systems. Higher goat flock size per household was observed in the pastoral areas (94.62 ± 30.21goats) as compared to the agro-pastoral (55.56 ± 20.06) (p < 0.05). Coat color, appearance (conformation and body size), and pedigree (dam history for milk) are the top-ranked attributes for selecting breeding buck with index value of 0.28, 0.23, and 19, respectively. Milk yield, coat color, and appearance were also used for selecting breeding does with index values of 0.24, 0.20, and 0.17, respectively. Selection of breeding female is hardly practiced since all females are used for replacement, but breeding buck selection is done in a very young age primarily based on their coat color. The results obtained in this study could be used as input to design genetic improvement programs for goats in Aba'ala. Interventions are needed in expanding veterinary service, improved animal husbandry practices, and selective breeding to enhance the productivity of the goat populations.