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| dc.contributor.author | Yimenu, Amarech | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-09-01T09:11:38Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-09-01T09:11:38Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-06 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://ir.bdu.edu.et/handle/123456789/17207 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The study of Phenotypic characterization of indigenous chicken is essential for sustainable genetic improvement, utilization, and designing conservation strategies of the breed at local, regional, national, and global levels. The objective of the study was to assess the husbandry practices and phenotypically characterize indigenous chickens. The study was conducted in three selected districts of the North Gojjam zone, Amhara region. Three kebeles from each district, a total of nine kebeles, were selected purposively, and the number of respondents and chickens from each village was determined proportionally. A total of 388 respondents were selected using simple random sampling techniques and interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. A total of 478 indigenous chickens were randomly selected for the characterization of quantitative and qualitative traits. Quantitative trait data were analyzed using the general linear model (GLM) procedure of SAS version 9.0, whereas qualitative trait data were analyzed using SPSS version 25. The result of the current study indicated that 22% of the respondents were males and 78% were females. The overall mean flock size of chickens in the study area per household was 6.9±1.12, 2.66±0.85, 2.29±0.69, 1.6±0.75, and 1.47±0.69 for young chicks, pullets, cockerels, hens, and cocks, respectively. Overall, 84.8% of the respondents provide supplementary feed for their chickens. All of the respondents (100%) provided water for their chicken with free access (64.2%), twice a day (26.8%), and once a day (8.9%). Majority of the respondents (97.4%) had poultry house within the housing system of separate shelter (21%), perch in the main house (42.7%), perch in other animal house (17.7%), perch in the kitchen (12.4%) and perch in the veranda (6.2%), on the other hand, 6.1% of the respondent had no poultry house. The major constraints of chicken production were disease, with an overall index value of 0.3. Regarding opportunities in chicken production, the market was ranked 1st with an index value of 0.47. Concerning breeding practice, 23.8% of respondents had breeding experience in improving their chicken productivity either by cross-breeding (22.6%), line breeding (45.2%), and by outbreeding (32.3%). The major criteria used for selection of breeding hens were egg number with an overall index value of 0.26, whereas body weight was for breeding cock with an overall index value of 0.36. About 95.8% of indigenous chickens were normal feathered, whereas the remaining 3.9% of indigenous chickens were naked-neck. The dominant plumage color of indigenous chicken was red (39.1%), followed by Grayish/Gebsema (26.4%), Teterma (12.8%), White (9.6%), Black (7.1%), and Multicolor (5.0%). Quantitative measurements indicated that significant differences (P<0.05) were observed between agro-ecology with respect to traits such as wing span, body weight, comb length, comb width, wattle length, and earlobe length. Generally, the phenotypic diversity of indigenous chicken in the study districts indicated the existence of genetic variability and genetic resources, which vary from place to place, that might be due to the early introduction of chicken and various causes of variation in Ethiopia. Therefore, qualitative and quantitative variations were observed among the chicken population in this study area, which suggests that there is an opportunity to improve the genetic | en_US |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.subject | Animal Production | en_US |
| dc.title | On Farm Phenotypic Characterization and Husbandry Practices of Indigenous Chicken keeping Households in Selected Districts of North Gojjam Zone, Amhara | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
