Breeding practices, reproduction and milk production performances of indigenous goats raised in rural communities in Gamo Zone, Southern Ethiopia: a contribution to sustainable small-scale goat farming.

Indigenous goats in tropical regions are adapted to diverse ecological and management conditions, providing significant benefits to millions of rural communities. This study examined the current indigenous goat breeding practices and performances in four rural districts of Gamo zone. Data were collected through an on-farm survey and repeated recordings from 180 goat-keeping households and analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics as well as indexed ranking. The study showed that, meat production, selling live goats as a source of cash income, and saving assets were identified and ranked as the major purposes of goat keeping. Uncontrolled natural mating (93.9%) was predominantly practiced goat breeding system in the study districts. Both economic and adaptive traits were considered by farmers during breeding stock selection. However, poor-performing goats are culled through selling, slaughtering, or castration. The estimated inbreeding coefficient (0.0005) indicated that there was availability of sufficient breeding stocks and no inbreeding problem in the studied goat populations. Moreover, the majority of the reproductive performance indicators and milk off-take exhibited a significant variation across study districts (p ≤ 0.05), showing high indexes of reproduction performance (young ages at puberty, mating and kidding, high litter size, longevity of life, and reproductive age) and better daily milk yield and lactation length. Thus, the study provided valuable insights on productive performances, breeding stock selection, and culling practices, which would allow improving the livelihood of farmers and would eventually contribute to the national economy. Further research was suggested to investigate the consumer-preferred meat quality of Garda Marta and Arba Minch Zuria goats and a selective breeding tied with a community-based breeding approach to improve unplanned breeding and boost overall performances.