All individual animal performance data are recorded smoothly from the breeding to calving period Animals and their data sources are gathered from the on-going research that has collected by indigenous cattle registration card and performance record format maintained at Dubti cattle breeding research station.

1. Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR)
PAP Research Directorate
Annual National Review Meeting
APARI-Livestock Research Directorate
February, 2020 G.C
EIAR, Addis Ababa

2. 1.Project component:- Animal breeding and Reproduction
2. Project title: Development of Livestock Technologies and Information in
Lowland Areas of Ethiopia (34-02)
3. Activity title:- Production and Reproductive Performance Evaluation of Indigenous
Cattle Breed of Afar under Improved Management Condition in Dubti
Research Center
4. Status of the activity On going
5. Location: Dubti Pastoral and Agro-pastoral Research Center (DPARC)
6. Duration:- (July/Aug 2015 - June/July 2022 G.C)
7.Project Initiator:- Mohammed Endris
8.Responsible Person A staff of livestock section
9. Involved research
disciplines
Animal breeding, Animal health, Animal Nutrition and forage
and Animal production

3. 10. Objectives
10.1. General
objective
 To adopt and generate improved technology that focuses on the
productivity performance improvement of pure indigenous cattle
breed of Afar under improved management condition in Dubti
Research Station.
10.2. Specific
objective
to enhance productive and reproductive performance of Local Afar Cattle
through improved management condition.
to evaluate the genetic potential of Indigenous cattle breed of afar through
control breeding and better management.
to provide and generate local station-born heifers for Parents of the next
generation through control pure breeding.
to generate known information about the improvement of the productivity
of Pure Afar Cattle breed for further genetic improvement program.

4. 11.1. Progress :-  All individual animal performance data are recorded smoothly
from the breeding to calving period
 Animals and its data sources are gathered from the on-going
research that has collected by indigenous cattle registration
card and performance record format maintained at Dubti
cattle breeding research station.
11.2. Animal
performance traits
recorded:-
 Reproduction (age at 1st service, 1st calving age, gestation
length, calving interval and calving ease or dificulty)
 Milk production ( daily milk yield, lactation milk yield and
lactation length (LL)
• Calf’s growth performance (Birth weight, weaning weight and
status of calf
11. Summary of Research Progress

5. Table 1. Cow-Calving history maintained at Dubti research center
Calving sequence of
cows
Year of calving (E.C)
2008 (Parent stock
established)
2009
(Production
year)
2010 2011 2012 Total
Cows of 1st calving 0 5 5 1 1 12
Cows of 2nd calving 0 0 1 6 2 9
Cows of 3rd calving 0 0 0 1 2 3
No. calf’s
born
Male 0 2 2 4 2 10
Female 0 3 4 5 2 14
Total 24

6. 12. Results
Factor N DMY (lit/cow/d) LMY (lit/cow/lac/ LL (days)
Over all mean 20 3.50 (0.67) 789.4 (29.3) 227 (4.9)
No. of Parity Ns Ns Ns
1 11 3.60 (0.76) 775 (42.7) 217.3 (7.2)
2 7 3.54 (0.49) 833.7 (46.3) 235.3 (3.7)
3 2 2.85 (0.49) 713.8 (63.8) 251.5 (8.5)
Calving year (E.C) Ns Ns *
2009 5 3.58 (0.95) 740 (74.8) 209.6 (11.4)
2010 6 3.65 (0.68) 804.3 (51.3) 222.5 (9.01)
2011 9 3.36 (0.52) 806.6 (40.7) 240 (3.43)
Table 2. Reported (Means (Standard deviation) for Daily milk yield (DMY), Lactation milk yield
(LMY) and Lactation length (LL) by the effect of number of Parity and calving year of cows
maintained at Dubti research center
12.1. Milk production Traits
* = significant at P<0.05, Ns = not significant, N = number of records

7. 12.2. Reproduction Traits
Table 3. Reported (Means (Standard deviation) for Age at first calving (AFC) and Calving Interval
(CI) with the effect of Parity number and calving year of cows maintained at Dubti research
center
* = significant at P<0.05, Ns = not significant, N = number of records
Factors N AFC (months) N CI (months)
Over all mean 24 48.33 (3.83) 12 14.96 (2.30)
Parity of Calves dam NS NS
1 12 46.92 (3.87) - -
2 8 49.38 (3.62) 9 15.3 (2.44)
3 3 50.50 (3.11) 3 14.0 (1.85)
Calving year (E.C) NS NS
2009 5 47.40 (4.61) - -
2010 6 47.50 (3.33) 1 12.9 (0.0)
2011 9 49.22 (3.42) 7 14.6 (2.37)
2012 4 48.75 (5.37) 4 16.1 (2.11)

8. 12.3. Calf’s growth performance traits
Parameters N Min Max Mean Std. Deviation
Birth weight (kg) 24 21 25 22.9 1.04
6 month Weight (kg) 20 55 95 83.9 10.39
12 Month Weight (kg) 17 103 134 116.8 9.04
18 month weight (kg) 12 123.5 154.0 138.7 8.89
24 Month weight (kg) 11 144 174 159.64 8.78
N=Number of records
Table 4. Summary statistics of Overall mean, Std. Deviation, Minimum and
Maximum values of the growth performance of Calf’s

9. 0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
Bwt 6 mo Wt 12 mo Wt 18 mo Wt 24 mo Wt
Male
Female
Fig.1 The Mean growth performance of calf’s by sex category

10. New born calf’s of the year of 2012 E.C

11. 13. Interpretation of the result
• The data for this study is a four years data recording concerning the enhancement of the
productivity performance of our Indigenous afar cattle breed that are maintained at Dubti
research center at optimum management level.
• The performance traits recorded from the breeding to calving period are: Milk production
(DMY, LMY & LL), reproduction traits (AFS, AFC & CI) and Calf’s growth performance
(Birth weight and weaning weight).
• Results from the analysis of variance (Table 1) indicated that the overall means (SD) for
Daily milk yield, Lactation Milk yield and lactation length estimated to be 3.50 (0.67)
liter/cow/d/, 789.4 (29.3) liter/cow/lactation and 227 (4.9) days with a standard deviation
of 0.67, 29.3 & 4.9 respectively.
• Parity or calving number of cows had not significant effect of all milk production traits
whereas calving year was significant effect (p<0.05) on lactation length and not
significant on DMY and LMY.

12.  The overall mean (SD) of age at 1st calving (AFC) and calving interval (CI)
were 48.33 and 14.96 months with a standard deviation of 3.83 & 2.30,
respectively (Table 3).
• The effect of Parity number and calving year of cows are not significant effect
on Age at first calving (AFC) and Calving interval (CI).
• The result indicated in (Table 4), the overall mean, standard deviation values of
Birth weight, weaning weight (6mo Weight, 12mo Weight, 18m Weight and
24mo Weight) estimated to be 22.9 kg, (83.9, 116.8, 138.7 & 159.6 kg)
respectively.
• The Mean calf’s growth performance as shown the graph (Figure 1), Male
calves are occasionally faster grower and heavier than female calves after 6
months weights.

13. 14. Remarks
• The findings of this study or activity is not completed to get a
full scientific result of the project, because of it is the on-going
progress report.
• Therefore, the above analysis indicate or describe the project
performance evaluation of four years and the current evaluation show
the project was performing well .
• The project was useful when it completed through solving social problem
of dubti woreda Agro-pastoralist in specific and for all agro pastoral
societies as a whole.
• For know the project was using one single sire but for the future they
need to be a number of superior sires/bulls that results on a sound
improvement and conservation of the breed.
• Even though the limitation of both financial and infrastructural resources
we are using efficiently in order to achieve the objective of the project.

14. Estimated Financial budget for 2013 E.C
Sector/Center : Dubti Pastoral and Agro Pastoral Research Center
Budget Year: 2013 E.C
Budget Breakdown for project or Activity
Budget Code Project code Center Center Code
Total Budget
Requested
6114 34-02 Dubti 78 100000
6212 34-02 Dubti 78 3000
6213 34-02 Dubti 78 2000
6217 34-02 Dubti 78 35000
6218 34-02 Dubti 78 110,000
6219 34-02 Dubti 78 2,500
6221 34-02 Dubti 78 20,000
6231 34-02 Dubti 78 25,000
6232 34-02 Dubti 78 20,000
6244 34-02 Dubti 78 20,000
6245 34-02 Dubti 78 90,000
6255 34-02 Dubti 78 15,000
6256 34-02 Dubti 78 25,000
6271 34-02 Dubti 78 30,000
Total Budget 497,500.00

15. Thank you!!!