Abstract:
The study was conducted in Seka, Dedo and Omonada Districts of Jimma Zone,Oromia Regional
State. The objectives of the study were to undertake phenotypic characterization of sheep,farmers
breeding practices, selection criteria and to characterize their production environment. The study was
performed based on household survey and field measurements. For household survey, 180 households
(60 from each district) were involved whereas body measurements and qualitative traits were taken
from 570 sheep (190 sheep from each district). Data collected through questionnaire (survey) and
observations on qualitative traits were collected and analyzed for sheep traits using frequency
procedure of SPSS. Whereas, quantitative traits were analyzed using the SAS versions 9.3,
(2014).The result showed that crop and livestock productions were major sources of household heads
income in the study area. Among the livestock species, the average sheep flock size were7.80±3.07 in
Seka, 8.74 ±3.09 in Dedoand 8.12±4.84 in Omonada. In the study area the average mature ewes had
high proportion (4.72±3.19) across all the districts. The primary purpose of keeping sheep was for
cash income and breeding ranking in first and second across the three districts, respectively. The
major feed resources for sheep during the wet and dry seasons were private natural pasture and
commonal natural grazing land in all the three districts respectively. Rivers and spring water were the
main water source for sheep in both dry and wet season in the study area. Most the respondents
(73.3%, 93.3% and 83.3 for Seka, Dedo and Omonada districts) castrate their rams for primarily to
improve fattening.The majority (72.8%) of respondentswere practice uncontrolled mating system.The
main sources of breeding rams in the study area were own born from their flock (64.7%) and
35.3% of respondents obtained the source of breeding rams by purchased from market. Body
size/appearance and color was the major selection criteria of rams and ewes in the study area. The
average age at first mating of male sheep in Seka, Dedo and Omonada was 6.75, 6.76 and 6.58
months whereasfor female 7.56, 6.26 and 7.02 months respectively. Diarrhea, Sheep pox and parasite
were the most frequently diseases that affect productive and reproductive performance of sheep in all
study districts. Disease, feed shortage, water shortage, predator, Poor veterinary service and capital
problem were the major constraints and challenging of sheep production in the study districts. The
most frequent coat color patterns observed in the study area were 81.1% plain, 16.4% patchy and
sheep with spotted pattern (2.5% ) were rarely observed. The dominant coat color types were brown
(43.5%), fawn (17.5%), and red (13.0%) were the most frequently observed color type in the study
area. The majority (91.1%) of sheep in the study area were polled whereas (8.9%) of the sheep were
horned. The size of sheep increased as the age increased from youngest (1PPI) to the oldest (4PPI).
The effect of district on body weight and most of the linear body measurements were significant
(p<0.05) except head length, canon bone length, ear length and tail length. Chest girth selected first,
which explain more variation than any other linear body measurements in both ewes (94%) and rams
(93%). The prediction of body weight could be based on regression equation y = -21.82 + 0.68x for
female sample sheep population and y = -49.90 + 1.08x for male sample sheep population; where y
and x are body weight and chest girth, respectively.The result indicated that phenotypic
characterization, body weight and linear body measurement description could help as an input
for efficient utilization, conservation and designing improvement strategy for this genetic
resource for the community