Smallholder Cattle Production Systems and Husbandry Management in West Shewa Zone of Oromia Regional State, Central Ethiopia

The study was conducted in West Shoa zone, Oromia, central Ethiopia, aimed with assessment of Production Systems and Husbandry Management of dairy cattle. The study area covered 180 households found in peri-urban ,urban and rural areas of Adaberga, Ejere and Metarobi districts which included 58 in rural areas 101 in peri-urban and 21 in urban areas of the districts. The information was collected from secondary data, group discussion, household level survey questionnaire, farm visit and personal observations. The data were analyzed using SPSS (version 20). The farming system of the study area was grouped into livestock production (12.78%), crop production (2.78%) and mixed type of production (84.46%). Average land holding for crop, grazing and forage and irrigated land in the study areas were 2.3 ha, 1.38 ha and 0.17 ha respectively. About 100% in rural, 33.55% in peri-urban and 0.65% in urban of households, who owned local dairy cows was used free grazing and fed crop residue as supplement. Similarly 22.58% of households in urban and peri-urban, who had both local and crossed dairy cows, were used free grazing system for local and industrial by products for crossed cow with crop residue. The remaining 6.45% of household in urban and 9.03% in peri-urban were used stall feeding of industrial by products with the mix of crop residue and atella. Water for drinking dairy cattle were accessed from pond (12.26%), rivers (61.9 %), pipe water (23.29 %) and stream (2.58 %). From total respondents about 87.1% and 11.6% of respondents were cleaned dairy barns in daily and weekly basis respectively whereas 1.29% of the respondents were not cleaned dairy barns all the time. The dairy production improvements must consider the available feed resources, farming system, socio-economic and husbandry management.