Abstract:
nts ofThe study was conducted in Dangila town of Awi Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia, with the objectives of assessing cattle fattening and marketing practices and evaluating the fattening performances of cattle in the area. A semi-structured questionnaire survey and on-farm monitoring of fattening cattle in selected farm was carried out under fattener’s management condition. A total of 200 cattle fatteners (160 and 40 fatteners from peri- urban and urban areas) who have experience of cattle fattening and currently involved starting from one cattle fatteners were included and then survey data was collected via interviewed by using pre-tested semi structured questionnaire. For the monitoring work ten farms among those used for interview were selected for the purpose of monitoring animals’ performance. Then, a total of 75 animals (25 from peri-urban farm and 50 from urban farm) were purposively included based on number of cattle in the farm, willingness of fatteners and fattening system. The survey data was analyzed and summarized using descriptive statistics and index ranking and monitoring data were analyzed using the General Linear Model Procedure of of SPSS. The results showed that the overall mean family size, age of household heads, landholding per household were 5.15, 38.04 years, and 0.2 hectares, respectively. Most of the respondents hold cattle for draft power (index = 0.42). The respondents prefer uncast rated (65%) matured oxen. The respondents on average fatten once a year (60.5%) with a mean number of 2.24 fattening cattle. The main feed source was crop residue (index = 0.26) and natural pasture (index = 0.22). Most of the cattle fatteners select their fattening cattle based on body size (index = 0.27) and body condition (0.21). The mean initial and final body weight of fattening cattle were 291.4 and 365.44 kg, respectively. There was a significant difference (p<0.05) in final body weigh between initial body weight groups. The main participa cattle