الفهرس 
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Income contribution of small ruminantsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The objective of this study was to assess production performance of small ruminants, assess socio-economic situation of small ruminants keepers in Assiut governorate . The work was done in 6 centers from Assiut governorate . Five villages were selected in each randomlly center and the work was concentrated on 10 households in each village. Finally, a total of 300 households were interviewed individually using semi-structured questionnaires. Results revealed that : 1. Socio-economic characteristics of households - Distribution of households by marital statues are 88% married ,9.5% are single while 2.5% are either divorced or widowed. The proportions of households who have basic education, high school, graduate education or without education were; 22.0, 46.0, 3.0 and 29% of respondents, respectively. The percentage of age of households below 30 years 11%. The highest number between 30-50 years ( 49%) implying that they are young and able to work, while 50% of households are old ( above 50 years). - The average family size was 5.63 household members and who participate in agriculture activity were 2.00 from which 1.37 males and 0.63 females, respectively, participating in agriculture activities. -The average farm size in the study area was 8.2 feddan. The area cultivated with animal fodder was 50.89% around the year. - On average, a household owned 3.83 % cattle, 6.30 % buffalo, 44.45% sheep and 45.42 % goat indicated that respondents own higher number of sheep and goat.
- The relative contributions of the various farm household income sources showed that crop contribute was 51.03 % of the total agriculture income , while livestock production contribute 48.97%. Within the livestock sector; large ruminants contribute the highest (43.07% ) while small ruminants just (5.05 %) included that livestock production is the main means of livelihood in the studied area and the importance of farm activities varies from region to region and largely determined by ecological and economic factors. 2. Small ruminant production system - About 28.05% of households kept only sheep, 8.40% only goats and 66.65 % both species. Both sheep and goats were almost similar trend for distribution by age except for breeding females. Breeding females represent larger proportion in the flock for both species, while breeding males are the second largest age group. -Female mature animals represented approximately 53% and 48 % of the total flock and mature male animals accounted for 23 and 17% of sheep and goats flocks, respectively. Female young animals ( 12 months) accounted 13% and 19 % of the total flock and young male animals represented approximately 12% and 16 % of sheep and goats , respectively. -Relative importance of tangible benefits of sheep and goats keeping (such as regular source of income, meat, and manure). Most farmers keep sheep and goats primarily as source of income. Functions like ceremony received relatively low ranking among the reasons for keeping sheep and goats. -The most important small ruminant production constraints are feed shortage (42.44%), lack of enough input for small ruminant production (25.44%), marketing ( 15.48 %) and poor health management (16.64%) . 3. Small ruminants management - Green fodder is the main feed resource for small ruminants while concentrates are not common. Although there is difference in the availability and quality of green fodder across seasons of the year. Alfalfa is utilized in summer and autumn seasons while trifolim alexandrium is utilized during winter and spring seasons. - A grazing management plan must be designed with both plant growth and animal performance in mind. 63.45% of sheep and goats grazed alone while 28.44 of small ruminants grazed with other livestock. In summer season, 51.45% of households use grazing method. Cut and carry method is more practiced in winter season and represents 66.44%. -The highest prices for sheep and goats were for sire aged two years and sheep have a higher price than goats at all ages, because sheep had heavier weight than goats. Also, demand for sheep is more than goats. - Duration of fattening depends on feed quality, feed intake, feed conversion efficiency and growth potential of the animals. - The majority of lambs and kids for fattening were (96.61 and 87.58%), respectively. The average starting age of animals for fattening in study area for lambs was 6.58 month, while it was 8.37 month for kids. The average of fattening period in study area for lambs was 4.48 month and 3.98 month for kids. In this field, the average initial weight of lambs in study area was 25.3 kg and it was 13.8 kg for kids. The average sales weight of lambs in study area was 49.85 kg and for kids was 25.58 kg. Fattening net income per head was 163 L.E for lambs and 165 L.E for kids. - Culling in sheep and goat flocks is an important tool for the development of a good flock. It helps to remove undersized animals and breed those closest to the desired ideal type. selection criteria should be developed and followed when culling animals. Farmers practice culling of small ruminants due to old age (47%), infertility ( 30% ), financial problems (15% ), health problems (3% ) and growth weakness ( 5%) . -Pneumonia and diarrhea (58%) and Sheep pox (21.44 %) were the most common diseases in the studied area while the percentage of other disease was Pseudo tuberculosis (12.4%).
- Vaccinating of animals against foot and mouth disease was reported by 55.57 % of households. 23.44 % of households used traditional method to treat their sick animals. Other took sick animals to nearby veterinary clinics or treatment is done in the farm by veterinarian (73.75%). 4. Reproductive performance of small ruminants -There were a significant difference between the two breeds for litter size, lamb mortality rate and weaning weight . No significant differences were observed in age at first service ( mating) ,lambing interval and age at first lambing between sheep and goats , while goat breeds were significantly higher in litter size (P 0.01), lambing mortality ( 0.05) and weaning weight ( 0.01) than sheep breeds. Average reported age at first service for males and females sheep was 8.53 and 7.95 months , while it was 9.26 and 8.09 months for females sheep and goats , respectively. Average age at first lambing was 15.74±0.22 and 16.8 ±0.34 months for sheep and goats.The average lambing interval was 9.53± 0.15 months for sheep and 8.91±2.89 months for goats.Goats are superior to sheep in twinning rate under field condition. The average litter size was found to be 1.26 for ewes vs. 1.68 for goats under field condition. All farmers across the study sites practiced natural weaning. The overall reported average weaning weight for both sheep and goats 17.4 ± 0.44 and 14.7± 0.63 , respectively. There is little information on effect of unrestricted suckling on the performance of indigenous sheep and goats breeds in study area . The effect of unrestricted suckling particularly for long period on onset of oestrus need further study. Average weaning mortality for sheep and goats are estimated at 16.8 % and 18.7 %, respectively under the field conditions . 5. Breeding practices: Mating was usually uncontrolled. Out of a total of 300 households interviewed, about 85.66 and 81.08% kept their own breeding males in sheep and goat flocks, respectively . However, inbreeding was greater in most of these flocks. The majority (85.46 % and 87.33%) of rams and bucks for households were originated from own flock and 11.44% and 12.67%, respectively, were purchased from market. Inbreeding can be minimized by communal breeding which allows breeding females for other flocks to mix with breeding males of different flocks. When breeding males were not reared in their flocks, the households got the service from neighbors’ or communal rams selection of parents of the next generation in both sheep and goats was common among the households in the studied area. Data show that, the first thing that breeders depend on is the phenotype in selection of males sheep and goats , then twining rate for females sheep and goats and growth rate for males sheep and goats . Milk production and fertility were given relatively little emphasis in selecting breeding females. 6. Possibility of develop small ruminant production system: Education has a significant effect on breeder’s interest for modern scientific tactics on animal production for literate ( 37.15 %) against (22.15 %) for illiterate and on field crops for literate was ( 23.15% ) against (16.65%) for illiterate and on vegetables for literate (8.15%) against (5.16%) for illiterate, while on fruits (date palm) illiterate has higher percentage (16.15%) against (12.15 %) for literate. Also, the present results show that education has a significant effect on interesting in modern scientific tactics in animal production, because they need new tactics in fields of genetic improvement, animal care and animal feeding. Also, they need new tactics in fields of modern agricultural methods and modern irrigation methods. There are no effect of education on field of fruits because, breeders transact with date palm for a long time, so it is difficult to exchange their system -Breeders depend on different resources to have information to be able to develop their production system. Agricultural guides and television were the best way to have information , while breeders depend on mutual visits from breeders and Subjective experience . It could be concluded from these results that Sheep and goats are very important smallholder producers due to their biological factors such as short generation interval, twinning, short growth periods, do not require much space and their need for feed are few. Making farmers aware of the financial benefits of small ruminants may convince them to consider it as a better alternative to crop production in the study area in terms of income generation. There are many factors that hinder the production of small ruminant in the study area. These factors are feed shortage, lack of enough input for small ruminant production, marketing , and poor health management . Also, surmounting constrains will helping small ruminant’s keepers to make sheep and goat production profitable and sustainable. Breeders need for training and guidance and the system needs some trinng teqnology transfare. The most important proposals to improve the productivity of small ruminants for smallhoulders can be summarized as : 1- Intensifying the educational visits to smallhoulders and raising awareness about the methods of modern breeding. 2- The use of alternatives for fodder from agricultural by-products and agro-industrial by-products . 3- The use of some treatments to raise the nutritional efficiency some crop residues. 4- Using some additives to improve digestion values of crop residues. 5- The establishment of breeding system to eliminate the internal breeding.