Reproductive characteristics of ethiopian indigenous sheep breeds in different production and management settings as inputs for selective breeding schemes: a review

Abstract

Reproductive traits are economically important and therefore need to be considered during designing sheep breeding and improvement programs, as it determines the efficiency of sheep production. Reproductive performance can be assessed using key performance indicators, including age at puberty, age at first lambing, lambing interval, prolificacy, productive life of ewes, and lifetime lamb crop among others. This review summarizes the findings of previous studies on the reproductive characteristics of Ethiopian indigenous sheep breeds. As evidenced by the literature, the reproductive performances in Ethiopian indigenous sheep breeds ranged from 6.35 to 17.97 months, 11.34 to 24.8 months, 6.1 to 10.46 months, 1.01 to 2.4 lambs, 5.32 to 10.53 years, and 8.18 to 17.0 lambs for female age at puberty, age at first lambing, lambing interval, litter size at birth, ewes’ productive life, and lifetime lamb crop, respectively. Notably, substantial variations exist among genotypes and management conditions. This implies that reproductive performances of Ethiopian indigenous sheep breeds can be enhanced using improved management, and between and within breed selection. However, due to the low heritability, and sex-limited nature of most reproductive traits, identifying and including the genetic bases controlling the traits in the selection programs for enhancing reproductive traits of Ethiopian indigenous sheep breeds is worthwhile.