Characterization Of Cattle Production System And Feed Resources In Essera District Dawuro Zone Southern Ethiopia

This study was conducted in Essera District, Dawuro Zone of South Nations Nationalities and People Region with the objectives of assessing cattle production system, identifying major feed resources and analyzing their chemical composition as well as identifying and prioritizing cattle production constraints of the study area. Ninety households (HHs) owning cattle were selected randomly. A structured questionnaire was prepared and used to collect data on cattle production system, production constraints, feeding systems and available feed resources. Feed samples were collected from crop residues, indigenous grass, legumes and browses to analyze their chemical composition. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, indices and one-way ANOVA using SPSS software. The average family size was 6.74±0.32 per HH. Crop-livestock mixed farming was the commonly used farming system (95.5%). The mean total land holding was 2.91±0.18 ha per HH and there was no significant (P>0.05) difference in total land holding among three agro-ecologies. The average land allocated for crop production, fallow land, others and grazing land was 1.00 ± 0.26, 0.92 ± 0.20, 0.46 ± 0.19 and 0.42 ± 0.19, respectively. The results of this study showed that the average cattle herd size per HH was 11.12 ± 0.69 and significantly (P

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