On-Farm Phenotypic Characterization of Indigenous Sheep Types in Selale Area, Central Ethiopia

The study was conducted to physically characterize indigenous sheep types in Selale area, Debre Libanos and Wuchale districts, Central Ethiopia.A total of 560 mature sheep were sampled randomly for characterization of phenotypic traits.Majority of the ewes and rams in both districts had plain coat color pattern (58.21%) followed by patchy (33.33%).Majority of female and male sheep in the study areas had medium and smooth coat cover.All the sampled sheep population in both districts has characteristics of long fat tailed type.Body weight of female sheep in age group1(0PPI), age group2(1PPI) and age group 3(≥ 2PPI) were 24.3 ± 0.6 kg, 25.8 ± 0.5 kg and 28.7 ± 0.2 kg, respectively, and the values for males in the same age groups were 25.7 ± 0.3 kg, 31.9 ± 0.8 kg and 38.2 ± 2.0 kg, respectively.Wuchale sheep (27.9 ± 0.20 kg) were comparable with Debre Libanos sheep (27.6 ± 0.2 kg).Debre Libanos sheep had significantly higher linear body measurements (P<0.05)than Wuchale sheep population.Sex of the sheep had no significant (p>0.05)effect on the body weight, ear length and rump length.The interaction of sex and age group significantly (p<0.05)influenced all linear body measurements except ear length of the sheep.The interaction of age group and location was significant (p<0.05) for all linear body measurements.Heart girth and body length were found to be the most important variables for estimation of body weight in sheep.For any breed improvement program and to boost productivity of indigenous sheep, characterization is the baseline so; this preliminary work could be used to support genetic analyses to determine variation between and within these small populations.