The purpose of the study was to obtain information on the resistance levels of four indigenousbreeds of cattle (Abigar, Gurage, Horro and Sheko) to natural infestation with ticks in theGhibe Valley. Monthly collection of ticks from randomly selected cohort of 15 heifers ofeach breed, in the period January through October 2002, showed the most common tickspecies to be: Amblyomma variegatum (39.5%), Boophilus decoloratus (39.1%), A. cohaerens(10.5%) and Rhipicephalus evertsi evertsi (6.7%). Species of least abundance include, R.praetextatus, Haemaphysalis aciculifer, Hyalomma marginatum rufipes, R. bergeoni, R.lunulatus, R. muhsame and R. pravus, altogether comprising 4.2% of the overall tick species.The monthly abundance of adult and immature ticks, their feeding sites on the hosts and themale to female sex ratio were determined. Resistance to ticks between breeds was evaluatedbased on the cumulative log transformed counts of total ticks, fully engorged females andadult ticks and was analysed by the method of least squares. The results revealed that thecount of total ticks in Horro and Gurage (mean count of 5 ticks per month per breed) waslower than those of Abigar and Sheko (7 ticks per month per breed) (P< 0.001). The meancount of fully engorged females in Horro and Gurage cattle breeds was also lower (2 ticks permonth per breed) than Abigar and Sheko (3 ticks per month per breed) (P< 0.05). The meancount of adult ticks was the lowest in Horro (4 ticks per month per breed), followed byGurage (5 ticks per month per breed), Abigar and Sheko (6 ticks per month per breed) (P 0.05), Gurage (r = 0.4, P< 0.05) and Sheko (r = 0.5,P< 0.05) breeds, while weak negative correlation (r = - 0.2, P> 0.05) was observed in Horro breed, indicating the possible role of IgG in the acquisition of host resistance to ticks.