Breeding strategies for indigenous goat genetic resources among smallholder farmers in north - central Nigeria

D M Ogah

Animal Science Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Nasarawa State University Keffi, Shabu- Lafia campu
mosesdogah@yahoo.com

Abstract

A study was carried out using 520 household across three states of Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau to characterize goat production and breeding objective traits in north- central Nigeria. Data was collected through participatory rural appraisal (PRA) method, structured questionnaire and interviews were used to determine the productivity of local goats, breeding traits preference and factors used to decide which goat to keep in communal production system.

Results obtained indicated that West African Dwarf goat was the main goat breed reared in this zone. Mating was natural and uncontrolled. Herd sizes recorded were 8.48±1.20, 11.71±0.61 and 7.12±1.11 while litter size was 1.6±0.01, 1.4±0.03 and 1.2±0.02 for Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau States respectively. Fast growth, disease resistance, temperament and mothering ability were ranked as the very important attributes in all the communities. Coat colour and body conformation were reported to be of little value as preference traits. The goats have the potential to produce good litter size and attain lower weaning mortality. The communal smallholder goat keeper in this zone selects their breeding stocks based on some adaptive traits such as disease resistance, and also on inherent traits such as temperament, mothering ability and fast growth rate. Inbreeding rate estimated using standard procedure, among the population was low and indication that the goat population at this region is not at risk. It can be concluded that the breeding strategy for the goat is similar in this region. The findings in this study can be used to design an appropriate programme for improvement and conservation of this indigenous goat.

Keywords: herd, mating system, preference traits, selection criteria

Introduction

Goat genetic resources play an important socio-economic role in many rural communities of the world in contributing to food and nutrition security. They are a source of income from sale of animals and their products, including skins, meat and milk for home consumption and manure, besides playing intangible roles like being insurance against emergencies and as an investment in stock (Kosgey 2004). Goats are able to adapt to and utilize marginal forage, and survive under harsh conditions. This makes them a very valuable asset for subsistence farmers. Besides, these, they easily adapt to intensive productive systems, and convert their feed into highly nutritious milk and meat very efficiently (Ogah 2010).

In Nigeria goats represent a veritable resource for economic development and livelihood security in addition to major cultural importance. The population of goats in the country is estimated at 53.8 million (FAOSTAT 2009) of which traditionally reared stock contributes 99.97%, while 0.03% of the stock is commercially managed. Red Sokoto (RS) and West African Dwarf (WAD) goats are the two most important goat breeds found in Nigeria. They are kept as a source of food and investment. Their ability to tolerate harsh climates, remarkable recovery capacity from drought, suitability to traditional systems due to small size, short generation interval (Odubote 1994; Ogah et al 2009; Ogah 2010) and ability to thrive on poor quality diets resulting from scarce grazing on marginal land (Hoste et al 1988) make goats strategic in increasing livestock productivity in rural agricultural systems (Fitzugh et al 1992). The WAD are trypanotolerant (Hoste et al 1988) and able to inhabit the trypano-endemic humid zones of humid region of Nigeria.

The design of breeding programs requires that the preferences and breeding objectives of farmers/pastoralists are known and appropriately considered. Smallholder farming is no exceptions. Farmers select animals considering morphological and production characteristics. They may use more of subjective selection giving more weight to morphological selection criteria than production selection criteria (objective selection) (Kassie et al 2009).

Indigenous knowledge of animal breeding is made up of various concepts and practices used by livestock breeders to influence the genetic composition of their herds. It includes cultural concepts on the uses of animals (general breeding objectives), local preferences for certain characteristics, such as colour, size, behavioural patterns and disease or drought resistance

(Specific breeding objectives). Selection practices for certain qualities castration, culling, offspring testing, pedigree-keeping and social restrictions on the sale of genetically valuable breeding animals that lead to closed gene-pools.

In agriculture particularly in the livestock sector, there is a recent boom in published reports e g Tano et al 2003) has quantified farmers’ preferences for cattle traits in West Africa; Scarpa et al (2003) studied revealed and stated preferences of cattle traits in Kenya. Wurzinger et al (2005) valued trait preferences in Ankole cattle of Uganda; Ouma et al 2007 examined farmers’ preferences of cattle traits in North Kenya and Central Ethiopia; Zander et al (2008) estimated values of cattle breeds in South Ethiopia and North Kenya; Roessler et al (2008) identified pig traits preferences in Vietnam; Omondi et al (2008) analyzed goat and Sheep traits preferences, respectively, of pastoralists in North Kenya; Kassie et al (2009) evaluated cattle trait preferences of farmers in Central Ethiopia. All have identified trait preferences in the animals with respect to its value to the immediate community.

Understanding the purposes of keeping goats and the functional basis of traditional breeding practices is a prerequisite for designing sustainable goat genetic improvement programs and strategies for the future development of indigenous breeds. This requires proper characterization including breeding practice. This study was initiated with the aim of determining the productivity of local goat, breeding traits preference and factors used to decide which goats to keep in communal production system in North-central Nigeria.

Materials and methods

Study location

The study was conducted in three States of Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau in central Nigeria. These States are within the north-central zone of Nigeria, extending from approximately 8^o to 12^o N and 4 to 7.3^o E. Annual rainfall of this zone is about 800-1100mm. The zone has about 4.5 million inhabitants. The study was carried between February and December 2014.

Figure 1. Location of the study site

Data collection

520 households from 17 villages were used for data collection using participatory rural appraisal (PRA). The villages were spread across the three states, and were selected based on the number of goats available and the receptibility of the goat keepers with the support of the Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) staff of the affected States. The villages from each State include, Duduguru, Adogi, Maiakuya, Gidenye, Alagye, Ediya and Akurba in Nasarawa State; Namu, Sabon gida, Kurgwi, Kwande and Ba’ap in Plateau State and Mbagwen, Gidan Sule, Naka, Fiidi and Daudu in Benue State. Structured questionnaire and interviews with key informants and direct observation on production practice on goats were used . Other information’s considered included demographic data, livestock herd composition, litter size at birth, pre-weaning mortality, traits selected for goat breeding and function of the animals.

Data Analysis

Data from the questionnaires were coded and recorded into the spreadsheets for statistical analysis. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 2007) computer software was used to generate means, standard error, frequencies and percentages. Furthermore, rate of inbreeding was calculated in the population. Effective population size for a randomly mated population was calculated as Ne= (4N_mN_f) / (N_m+N_f) where Ne=effective population size, Nm=number of breeding males in the flock and Nf=number of breeding females in the flock. The rate of inbreeding (ΔF) was calculated from Ne as ΔF=1/2Ne (Falconer and Mackay 1996).

Results and discussion

Performance characteristics

Table 1 present the performance characteristics of the indigenous goats in the three states of north central Nigeria. Litter sizes at birth were 1.60±0.01,1.40±0.03 and 1.20±0.01 for Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau respectively and do not vary significantly. This could be due to similarity in agricultural activities and management practices adopted by the farmers in the zone. Pre-weaning mortality observed here showed similar trend with other performance characteristics. Similar findings were however reported by Matthewman (1980), who found a pre-weaning mortality of approximately 15%, but states that this is possibly an underestimate. Major factors influencing pre-weaning mortality within a breed are birth weight, litter size and parturition number (Wilson 1980). This corroborate the work of Osuagwuh and Akpokodje (1981), working with West African Dwarf goats at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, found mortality of 38.6% in kids up to 3 months of age.

Herd size is a product of production function the herd size observed here ranged between 7.12 to 11.71 an indication that the herd size per farmer in this zone is small compare to other reports .Figure 2. present the distribution of goat breeds in the study area, with about ninety percent of the indigenous goats kept by the farmers as WAD with crosses and long legged Red Sokoto goat which were introduced to the zone. The predominance of the WAD in this area has to do with the socio- cultural and adaptive value of the goat to the farmers.

Figure 2 . Distribution of goat breeds in the zone

Figure 3. A typical goat keeping system of the studied area

Trait preference and selection criteria

Selection criteria for breeding goat in the studied environment are shown in Table 2. There is variation in the preferential traits across states. In all states, temperament, mothering ability and disease resistant rank between one to three in terms of importance. While there was great variation with regards to importance of other traits with state. The reason for this variation might have to do with culture and community requirement. The preference for disease resistant traits might not be unconnected to disease threat in the area and the need to have tolerable strain.

Understanding farmers’ trait preferences provides insights into which traits are particularly important in their agro-ecosystem and how these can be incorporated in the design of sustainable breeding programs. The selection decisions of farmers for preferring specific traits in the present study with particular reference to temperament and disease resistance are reflection of the crop-livestock production environment they operate thus will prefer hardy and docile animal which is consistent with the study of Tekleyohannes et al (2012) in Omo zone of Ethiopia. It has been reported that livestock farmers in general place more weight on morphological selection criteria (subjective selection) than production selection criteria (objective selection) (Tabbaa and Al-Atiyat 2009). However, selection criteria might differ with breed, herd size, production system and marketing opportunities available in their area (Tabbaa and Al-Atiyat 2009; Kebede et al 2012).

The effective population size (Ne) and the rate of inbreeding (ΔF) calculated for the indigenous goat at the various locations under this study using their random population size is presented in (Table 4). Effective population size is a measure of genetic variability within a population with large values of Ne indicating more variability and small values indicating less genetic variability (Maiwashe et al 2006; Cervantes et al 2008). Inbreeding is the probability that two alleles at any locus in an individual are identical by descent relative to a base population (Falconer and Mackay 1996). The rate of inbreeding in the goat populations under this study were low, the low value of ΔF is an indication that the goat population in all the locations are not at the risk of extinction. However, a balanced breeding programme through the introduction of blood from other superior indigenous goat breeds from other ecotypes in the country may be a step in the right direction in attenuating inbreeding rate.

Conclusion

• The indigenous goat breeds have unique combinations of adaptive traits that best responds to the pressures of the local environment on which they have evolved over time. They have acquired important traits such as disease resistance and ability to utilize poor quality feeds, attributes essential for achieving sustainable production in low-input production systems of Nigeria.
  
  
• Production characteristics of the goat in the study area are basically free range smallholder production system with little input.
  
  
• Farmers select goat breeding stocks based on their adaptive and behavioural traits such as mothering ability, temperament and disease resistant which may reflect their production priority.
  
  
• Inbreeding rate among the study population indicate that goats in the study zone are not under the threat of extinction. The result of this work can be use to design an appropriate breeding programme that can be sustainable.

Acknowledgement

I sincerely thank the extension unit of the ADPs of the affected States for the cooperation and support during the data collection.

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Received 13 January 2016; Accepted 9 February 2016; Published 1 April 2016

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