Performance of Crossbred Dairy Cows Under Small and Medium Scale Farmers’ Management in and Around Shashamane City, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted in and around Shashamane city to assess commonly used feed resources, feed intake and productive performance of crossbred dairy cows during early lactation under farmers’ management. A total of 60 dairy farmers from urban and 60 from peri-urban (Kerara Filicha = 20, Kuyera = 20 and Arsi Negele = 20) were selected for the study. Structured questionnaire, secondary data sources and field observations were employed to generate data. A total of 48 animals from both small (16) and medium scale farms (32) in early lactation and parity from 2 to 6 were used for monitoring study for the period of 90 days. Fifteen major feed types used by dairy farms were identified in the area and categorized into five classes. Significant differences were observed in daily intakes of DM, crude protein and ME (P<0.001) between production sub-systems and herd size groups. Higher daily energy requirement was satisfied in urban and medium scale farms than peri-urban and small scale farms. Daily milk yield was also significantly different (P<0.05) between production sub-systems and herd size groups (P<0.01). Therefore, from the current study it was concluded that the quality of available basal roughage feed is generally low and the productivity of animals on both production sub-systems and farm scale was below their expected genetic potential. Hence, large variation between production sub-systems and farm scale groups showed the opportunities for further improvement with strategic supplementation of energy and protein rich feeds.