Growth Performances of Meta Sheep under Community-based Breeding Program at Meta Welkite District, West Showa Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Temesgen Jembere, Endale Yadesa, Ulfina Galmessa, Chimdessa Degaga, Shambel Befkadu, Fekede Feyisa, Beksisa Urge, Mesfin Dejene, Abule Ebro, Taddele Dessie, Solomon Gizaw, Tesfaye Tadese, Addisu Abarra, Kejela Tesema, Tesfaye Getachew, Barbara Rischkowsky, Aynalem Haile. (23/11/2025). Growth Performances of Meta Sheep under Community-based Breeding Program at Meta Welkite District, West Showa Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. Ethiopia.

Abstract

Research center-based genetic improvement of sheep in Ethiopia has been conducted on the Horro breed at Bako Agricultural Research Center and the Menze breed at Debrebrihan Agricultural Research Center for a relatively extended period. Due to the limited impact of long-term on-station sheep research, a community-based breeding program (CBBP) was initiated in Ethiopia in 2009. Nowadays, there are thousands of CBBPs for both sheep and goats in Ethiopia, primarily located in the Amhara and the former Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR). Despite the region's potential for sheep CBBPs, the number of such programs in Oromia remains limited. The current sheep CBBP was established based on the experiences gained from goat CBBPs implemented in the Meta Welkite district since 2013 by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The current study was conducted with the following research questions in mind:(1) Is it possible to generate data for Meta sheep under farmers' conditions? (2) How is the growth performances of Meta sheep compared with other indigenous sheep breeds? (3) How have the growth performances of Meta sheep evolved over the past two generations? The objective of this study was to evaluate the growth performance of Meta-sheep using data collected over six years in the Meta-Welkite district. The CBBP of Meta-sheep was being conducted in Suba Gajo Kebele of Meta-Welkite district, West Shewa, Ethiopia since 2018. Birth weight (bwt), three-month weight (3mw), average daily gain from birth to three-months (pdg), six-months (6mw), average daily gain from three months to six months of age (ADG2), yearling (12mw), and average daily gain from six months of age to yearling weight (ADG3) were all examined in relation to fixed effects such as year of birth, sex of lambs, birth type of lambs, season of birth, and parity at birth of lambs. The data were collected through permanently hired enumerator. Few records that did not qualify for the data analysis were ignored for each trait. The analysis of parameters was made using SAS (2002) software. The overall mean bwt, 3mw and pdg of Meta sheep at Meta-Walkite district were 2.84 kg, 13.37 kg and 117.66 g, respectively. The overall 6mw, 12mw, ADG2 and ADG3 were 16.18 kg, 21.46 kg, 40.30 g and 50.29 g, respectively. Year of birth significantly (p<0.05) affected all the investigated traits where the effect of parity of birth was not significant (p>0.05) for all the traits under investigation. In addition, 3mw and 6mw were significantly affected (p<0.05) by sex of lambs, litter size at birth and season of births. The pdg of Meta sheep was significantly different (p<0.05) for litter size at birth and season of birth. The Meta-Welkite district's community-based sheep breeding program demonstrates promise, as evidenced by the recorded values for the pre- and post-weaning growth traits, which were typically, higher than or comparable to the values reported for Ethiopia's known indigenous sheep breeds kept under intensive and/or extensive production systems. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the ongoing CBBP and undertake on-station performance evaluations in order to explore the maximum genetic potential of the Meta sheep breed.