Abstract

Evaluation on growth and survival performances of Borana goats and their crosses with Boer was performed at Yabello Pastoral and Dryland Agriculture Research Center. General Linear Model (GLM) and Chi-square procedure of Statistical Analysis System (SAS) were used to analyze the effect of breed group, sex, parity, birth type and kidding season on traits such as BWT, PADG, WWT, 6MWT, 9MWT, YWT, PoWADG and mortality rate. Growth performances and mortality rate of crossbred goats were significantly affected (p<0.05) by breed group, sex, parity, birth type and birth season. Average pre weaning growth performances of crossbred goats were 3.26±0.78 kg BWT, 138.34±41.87 g ADG and 11.79±2.88 kg WWT. While post-weaning growth performances  were 16.63±3.51 kg, 19.55±4.62 kg, 21.61±5.47 kg and 84.68±29.1 g, for 6MWT, 9MWT, YWT and PoADG were varied (p<0.05) based on Boer to Borana goat blood ratios of kids. Mortality rates were 9.38, 16.95, 25, and 20.91%, in respective order, for 25% Boer, 50% Boer, 75% crosses of Boer and Borana goat. However, mortality rate was not significantly influenced by different blood levels (p>0.05). Generally, crossbred goats outperformed the indigenous goat breed. As a result, systematic crossing of Boer with indigenous Borana goat breed is recommended as it improves the growth performance without a major loss of kids due to the blood ratio of Boer up to 75% cross level. Further research work is needed to understand responses of breed groups in relation to various management systems in order to reduce mortality rates.

Key words: Crossbred, evaluation, Borana and Boer goats, growth, pre and post weaning, survival performance, Ethiopia.