Authors : J. Semakula, D. Mutetikka, D.R. Kugonza and D. Mpairwe
Abstract: A study was conducted in three districts (Arua, Soroti and Sembabule) in Uganda to characterise the goat breeding practices in Uganda. A set of detailed structured questionnaires was used to collect information from 160 goat owners in one-visit-interviews. Results indicated that 57.5% of farmers in Sembabule showed livestock as their main activity, while none from Soroti or Arua indicated entirely livestock. Women and children play a substantial part with regards to routine management activities but have little control on decision making. Goats were mainly acquired by buying, while removal was by selling. Goats were ranked second behind cattle. Goats have multi-functional roles, though mainly kept as a regular income source in all the three districts. Mating was generally natural and uncontrolled. In each village, <20% kept their own bucks. Breeding does were selected mainly because of performance, birth type and body size, while bucks were chosen mainly on the basis of growth rate and body size across all districts. There seems to be a non quantifiable level of inbreeding depicted by the long duration (up to 4 years) buck owners take with their breeding bucks coupled with the poor record keeping. Tolerance to disease was the only adaptive trait merely reported as a little considered trait as they tended to consider such traits as naturally given to indigenous livestock. Although, majority of the goats kept were indigenous, there appears a clear trend from pure indigenous towards cross-breeds. Though from different ecological zones, goat keepers from Uganda seem to have similar realistic breeding strategies.
J. Semakula, D. Mutetikka, D.R. Kugonza and D. Mpairwe, 2010. Comparison of Breeding Systems by Smallholder Goat Keepers in the Humid, Sub-Humid and Semi Arid Ecological Zones of Uganda. Agricultural Journal, 5: 89-97.