Assessment of the Village Sheep Production Systems Under the Prevalent Management Practices in the Nile Delta of Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Animal production department, NRC

Abstract

This field study was conducted to describe roles, desirable traits, production systems and management practices in some villages of the Delta in Lower Egypt. Data on the farmers' sociodemographic factors were analyzed using frequency counts and percentages. The generality of farmers interviewed was male with the overall male farmers being 93%. On the other hand, most of the farmers in all villages (68%) were practicing mixed crop-livestock production systems. While data recorded indicated that the selection of ewes of the next generation was very common among the farmers. As the results indicated that irrespective of the villages twinning was ranked the highest ratio to be of prime importance followed by growth rate and mothering ability. Most farmers keep the sheep within the family houses in all villages under study (79.73%) to save them from, wolves, dogs, theft, cold and rain. While the average lambing rate was 135% and the fertility rate was 88.75%. Most farmers in all villages keep sheep primarily for cash sale as a source of income. Most farmers recorded that low fertility was indexed the highest ratio (0.28) compared to other constraints identified, while most of the farmers agreed that, the control of disease was indexed the second constraint (0.22). In conclusion, rural sheep farmers should be up-skilled in the management principles of sheep production. And we recommend the government promote sheep production and consider it as an economic diversification derive by including sheep meat production in local meat production improvement schemes.

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History

  • Receive Date: 24 August 2023
  • Revise Date: 19 October 2023
  • Accept Date: 30 October 2023

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