animal breeding

1. Chapter presentation for the course
Designing Animal breeding programs (AnGB7021)
Implemented Breeding Programs Options in Ethiopia: In case
of Dairy Cattle, Sheep and Chicken
Birhan Kassa (BDU1500178)
Supervisor: Prof. Kefaylew Alemayehu (PhD)

2. Presentation outline
• Introduction
• Breeding programs options
• Breeding program implementation approaches
• Major achievements of implemented breeding programs
– Straight breeding (selection)
• Fogera cattle, Horro and Tilili chicken
– Community based breed improvement
• Fogera cattle, Menz and Bonga sheep,
– Cross breeding
• Fogera, Boran Vs HF, Jersey and semental
– Breed substitution????
• Different layer, Broiler and dual purpose chickens
• Summary and Ways forward

3. Introduction
Breeding programs for different species in temperate climates have shown the
opportunities to increase the output per animal after a few decades of selection.
Even more remarkable results, especially for Meat production with different
species, have been obtained in well-designed crossbreeding schemes in the short-
term.
These programs have been favored by resourceful environments and well
developed infrastructure and markets.
The issue now is how to design efficient breeding schemes for indigenous breeds in
the tropics, where resources are limited and feed availability varies in harsh
climates.
How could productivity, fitness and adaptive traits, be maximised without
adversely affecting the environment and diversity needed for the unknown future?

4. Introduction cont……
Furthermore, such programmes must be developed in the context of prevailing
cultural and socio-economic conditions, i.e. be parts of the livestock use in the
total development of a community.
Thus, aspects of developing genetic improvement programmes for tropical
conditions are far more complex than for breeds in temperate climates of the
developed world
Designing a breeding programme is much more than genetic theories and increased
productivity.
It is a matter of infrastructure, community development and an opportunity for
improved livelihood of livestock owners through better animals and markets for
their products

5. Introduction cont……
The major problems of previous breeding programs in developing countries are
Too complicated in terms of logistics, technology and requirements of
resources without considering the infrastructure available
Indiscriminate crossbreeding of indigenous breeds with exotic breeds without
enough consideration of environmental conditions for production (Payne, 1997).
Lack of plans on how to maintain a suitable level of ‘upgrading’ or on how to
maintain the pure breeds for future use in crossbreeding contribute to non-
sustainability.
High levels of upgrading have generally led to animals with less resistance to
diseases and impaired ability to withstand environmental stress (Philipsson
et al., 2005)

6. Introduction conti…..
Lack of analysis of the different socio-economic and cultural roles that
livestock play in each situation, usually leading to wrong breeding objectives
and neglect of the potentials of various indigenous breeds of livestock.
Lack of comprehensive approaches to design simple, yet effective
breeding strategies in low-input environments.
Lack of awareness of what genetic improvement schemes may achieve in both
the short and long terms with different methods and species.

7. Introduction conti…..
Breeding program options in tropics
Payne and Hodges (1997) reviewed in detail the past developments of genetic
improvement programmes for cattle in the tropics and what could be seen as the
major options available for the future in seeking sustainable breeding systems.
These differ for many reasons from the programmes designed for temperate
breeds in Western countries.
In summary five major options are proposed:
Crossbreeding indigenous breeds with temperate breeds without artificial
insemination
Improving indigenous breeds????
Progressively substituting the breed with another indigenous breed???
Crossbreeding indigenous breeds with temperate breeds using artificial
insemination
Forming a composite (synthetic) breed.

8. Introduction conti…..
In general, Breeding program options should aim at being simple enough to allow
programmes to be launched without many resources.
In most such cases the schemes are based on open nucleus herds where the indigenous
breeds are kept under selection.
From these herds males, either purebred or crossbred, are distributed for use in
smallholder or village farming systems.
In this way, the indigenous breeds chosen for improvement will be conserved for the
future.
Depending on breed characteristics, the level of management and development one may
choose a simpler or more advanced scheme.

9. Introduction conti…..
Ideally, sustainable breeding programs (Aynalem Haile et al., 2016):
meet breeding objectives of the individuals, communities and nations for
which they were established;
are self-sufficient (technically, economically and socially);
are environmentally friendly (locally and globally).

10. Introduction conti…..
Through extensive breed characterization work it will be more likely to find interesting
indigenous breeds for use far outside their present
In addition, the additive genetic variation within the indigenous breeds seems to be large
and has so far not been much exploited
The formation of synthetic breeds has been tried and several breeds of today resulted
from such practice
It is also an interesting way out of a situation when systematic crossbreeding does not
work, while the incorporation of exotic genes is deemed important

11. Introduction cont……
This presentation paper aims:
To review the breeding programs option implemented in Ethiopia
To review the past achievements of each breeding program in selected livestock species

12. Breeding program implemented in Ethiopia
– Straight breeding (selection)
– Community based breed improvement
– Cross breeding
– Breed substitution????

13. Breeding programs in Ethiopia
1. Cross breeding
Crossbreeding has principally been applied in the tropics to exploit breed complementarity.
Specifically, specialized exotic (mainly temperate) breeds have been crossed with
indigenous breeds to combine the high productivity of the former with adaptive attributes
of the latter
Despite potential benefits from crossbreeding, there are not too many success stories in the
tropics.
Most crossbreeding programmes have either lacked long-term strategies on how to maintain
a suitable level of upgrading or have been too complicated to conduct in practice
As a result, uncontrolled crossbreeding has been identified as a major cause of loss of genetic
diversity in indigenous breeds,
primarily through replacement of pure indigenous breeds by crossbreds but also
through loss of certain traits, hence genes, not included in the breeding objectives
at that time.

14. Dairy cattle:
Genetic improvement of dairy cattle has been mainly focused on cross breeding in order to
combine high milk yield potential of exotic breed with adaptive potential of local breeds.
Objective: Increase productivity of indigenous cattle breed, milk and milk products through
crossbreeding with exotic dairy cattle breeds
Crossbreeding for dairy cattle improvement in Ethiopia was initiated in the early 1950s.
Using improved dairy cattle breeds and its associated technological packages
Genetic improvement of cattle through crossbreeding has been started by the Institute of
Agricultural Research.
using Friesian, Jersey and Simmental sires that were crossed with the local Fogera,
Horro, Boran and Barka dams (EARO, 2001; IBC, 2012; Chencha and Kefyalew, 2012).
Cross breeding cont….

15. Cross breeding cont….
Artificial insemination, estrus synchronization and embryo transfer were implemented as a
technological option (Gizaw et al., 2016; Ahmed and Mohammed, 2017).
Artificial insemination is the one that has made the greatest contribution to genetic
improvement programs (Ahmed and Mohammed, 2017)
Due to high cost of semen, liquid nitrogen and, technical problems it interrupted many times.
Currently these problems were solved and liquid nitrogen and bull semen was processed in
NAGII at national level and regional AI centers

16. Breeding program Location Objective
Fogera cattle genetic
improvement
Western Ethiopia
Amhara region
Crossbreeding with HF * for milk production
Conservation of pure Fogera and
Increase milk production of Fogera breed through pure
breeding and Community based breeding
Holetta Research center
crossbreeding Borena cattle
with HF
Central Ethiopia, Holetta Evaluation of different crossbred animal for milk production,
reproduction adaptation
Increase milk production through crossbreeding,
Production of selected crossbred bulls for AI,
demonstration and pre-scaling up F1 & 75% female
Adaberga Jersey cattle breed
improvement pure breeding of
jersey cattle
Central Ethiopia,
Adaberga
Increase milk production through pure breeding
Production of pure breed Jersey bulls for AI and NM
Fogera cattle breed
improvement and
multiplication
Chagni Western Ethiopia
Ahmara regio
Production of pure Fogera and
HF* Fogera crosses for milk production
Dairy cattle cross breeding and pure breeding programs in Ethiopia

17. Debre Zeit Research center
herd crossbreeding HF with
local Borena Cattle breed
Central Ethiopia, D/zeit Evaluation of performance of high grade dairy cattle for
Increase milk production and reproduction
development of
composite breed HF*
Arsi breed
Adami tulu research
center
Development of composite breed from two breed
crossing
Borena cattle breed
improvement and
conservation ranch
Didu Tuyra in Southern
Ethiopia Oromia region
Production of pure Borena cattle
conservation of Borena breed
Begait cattle breed
conservation and
improvement
Humera North western
Ethiopia Tigray Region
Production of pure Begait and HF* Begait crosses for
milk production
Distribution of F1 females
Horro cattle breed
improvement ranch
Oromia region, horro
guduru district
Production of pure horro cattle and
Jersey*horro cattle crossbreeding for milk production

18. Cross breeding: cattle….

19. Cross breeding: cattle….
Friesian, Simmental and Jersey crosses with exotic
inheritance of 50 to 62.5% are appropriate for
smallholder dairy production in Ethiopia (Beyene,
1992).

20. Cross breeding: cattle….
An increase in annual milk yield by 300% in
F1 crosses as compared to Fogera was
observed (Goshu and Mekonnen, 1996).

21. Cross breeding: cattle….
Boran cattle: Improvement of Boran cattle with crossbreeding strategy (Ayenalem et al., 2011)

22. Cross breeding: cattle….
Over all performance of crossbred in Ethiopia (Million et al., 2012)

23. Cross breeding: cattle….
Over all performance of crossbred in Ethiopia (Million et al., 2012)

24. Cross breeding: sheep
Crossbreeding was started with Menz sheep for its wool
production potential in 1967 using Corriedale, Hampshire
and Romney Marsh as sire breeds (Gizaw et al., 2013).
The most widely used crossbreeding program was
distribution of different blood level Awasi and Dorper sheep
– in the north shewa and south wollo areas where the local
breed at these areas was neglected.
Several studies from the on-station confirmed that the
crossbreds are superior to their local counterparts
(Getachew et al., 2016).
Awasi, and Dorper crossbreds

25. Growth performance of Dorper and its cross with different Ethiopian sheep breeds (Desalegn,
2019)
Cross breeding: sheep….
Growth performance of Boar with central highland goat (Amin et al., 2019)
Awasi, and Dorper crossbreds …

26. Cross breeding: chicken
Designed cross breeding program in chicken except DZ-White were not run in Ethiopia.
– DZ-white: (synthetic breed from Lohman silver, KK and RIW).
– The BW (BW8 and BW16), the DZ-white exhibit the highest BW8 (540.78g) and BW16
(1433.07g) and the lowest BW8 (469.55g) and BW16 (1179.87g) was recorded in
Improved Horro.
Some experimental works and assessment works were done, how ever compressive result
were not reported.

27. 2. Conservation Based Straight Breeding (Selection)
Selection is a process in which certain individuals in a population are preferred over others
for producing next generation.
does not create new genes, but it only increase frequency of desirable genes.
Man, aimed at improving genetic potential of farm animals, controls artificial selection.
Individual selection : Selection on the basis of individual phenotypic performance is called
individual selection. The limitations of individual selection are:
Some important traits like milk production, maternal abilities in cows are expressed only
in females.
The performance records for milk and other maternal qualities are available only after
sexual maturity is reached.
When the heritability of a trait is high, individual merit is a poor indicator of breeding
value.

28. Straight Breeding (Selection) cont…..
Pedigree selection: Selection on the basis of performance of the ancestors
• Pedigree selection is very useful when the traits selected are highly heritable.
• If a performance record of individual is available, the addition of pedigree information
usually adds little to accuracy of estimates of breeding value of individual.
• Limitation of pedigree selection is that the environment under which ancestor records
were made several years ago are quite different from the existing environmental
conditions when an individual is evaluated for selection
Family selection: Generally full sibs and half sibs are the most common collateral
relatives, whose records are often used to estimate the breeding value.
• When individual’s performance is also included in calculating the sibs average
performance, it is called family selection.
• very useful in case of traits with low heritability.

29. Straight Breeding (Selection) cont…..
Progeny testing: Selection of the individuals on the basis of average performance
of their progeny
– It is the estimation of an individual by evaluating its off springs.
– It is very useful tool in evaluating breeding worth of dairy cattle. It offers best means of
achieving genetic improvement in traits of moderate to low heritability.
– The rate of progress achieved by this method is double to that possible by phenotypic
selection.
– Progeny testing is generally used for selecting males as a large number of progeny can
be obtained for each male, while the number of progeny produced by a female is
limited.
– A major limitation of progeny testing is prolonged generation interval as individuals are
to be selected only after their test progeny performance is evaluated.
– It is also very expensive since a large number of animals are to be performance
recorded.
– For practical genetic consideration, the number of unselected daughters studied to
evaluate a bull should be between 30 and 50.

30. Straight Breeding (Selection): cattle
Boran cattle
As a result of natural and artificial selection, the Boran
breed has developed greater ability
to survive, grow and reproduce in conditions of high
ambient temperature, poor feed quality, water
shortage and disease including tick infestations
(Getachew et al., 2014).
Boran cattle is characterized as beef breed in Ethiopia
(DAGRIS, 2007).
But currently the Boran breeding program in Ethiopia had in a
big problem and the population is declined due to:
repeated pleasure of drought and
closing of ranches where the breed was conserved

31. Straight Breeding (Selection): cattle
Fogera cattle
Fogera cattle are one of the promising milk
type local breed of Ethiopia that is widely
adapted around Lake Tana of Amhara
region.
The breed had under ex-situ conservation at
Andassa LRC and Chagni CBR.

32. Straight Breeding (Selection): cattle

33. Straight Breeding (Selection): cattle
The inconsistency in genetic improvement trend indicated inefficiency in selection, varying
environmental stresses, low quality and quantity of nutrition and lack of accurate pedigree
structure (Demelash et al., 2020).
Estimated genetic trend for daily and lactation milk yield of Fogera cows at ALRC

34. Straight Breeding (Selection): Chicken
50 cocks 400 hens
2080 DOC
(200 *0.5 *0.65 hatching rate*8days*4
batch)
1248 growers (2080*0.6)
624 cockerels (Wk16)
If= 40/624= (7-10%)
624 pullets (Wk16)
If= 400/624= (50-60%)
Breeding scheme of Tilili and Horro chicken in Ethiopia (Wondmeneh et
al., 2022): Closed breeding scheme
Trait of interest
Egg number
Body weight
Horro: 2008
Tilili: 2021

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Egg number
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AFL
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Achievements

37. Horro chicken from DZARC
The selective breeding program had brought about
Increase growth by 95%
Increase egg number of 123 %
over the six generations of mass
selection on body weight at 16 weeks
and egg number at 45 weeks of age
(Wondmeneh, 2015).
Survival rate improved from less than 50% in
the first generation to 98% in the seventh
generation.
Straight Breeding (Selection): Chicken
Horro photo

38. Straight Breeding (Selection): Chicken
Horro breed is at its 10th generation (Hussen et al., 2020) had shown huge
performance improvement than from its base population (Nigussie, 2011) as well as
from the 7th generation (Wondmeneh, 2015).

39. Tilili Chicken from ALRC Poultry Research and Multiplication Farm
A similar selective breeding was started with Tilili ecotype
at Andassa Livestock Research Center in 2021 (Esatu et al.,
2022) .
Breeding goal traits: growth rate and egg number,
indirectly age at first laying and survival
The mean body weight of the day-old base population of
Tilili chicken was 30.4 gram with high variation between
the smallest and highest birds (Esatu, W et al., 2022).
The male body weight of selection candidates at the time
of selection decision at week 16 was 1100 grams (Esatu et
al., 2022)
Straight Breeding (Selection): Chicken
Tilili photo at second generation:
Photo credit by Birhan

40. 3. Community Based Breeding :

41. Community Based Breeding cont…..
Steps for setting community based sheep breeding

42. Community Based Breeding cont….
CBBP implementation procedure

43. 3. Community Based Breeding :
Started in 2008: sheep CBBP
Ensures a community ownership
Organizing farmers:
allows to create large flock,
capacitate community
Genetic improvement and measurement directly start at a community flock:
disease risk reduced :
shorten process
Based on their particular situation and capacity: Fits low input

44. Community Based Breeding cont….
• Currently, CBBPs focusing on local genotypes are being advocated as the
strategy of choice for genetic improvement of small ruminants (Haile et al.,
2011; Kosgey & Okeyo, 2007; Sölkner, Nakimbigwe, & Valle-Zarate, 1998).
• There are breeding programmes underway for Menz, Horro, Bonga, Washera,
Doyogena and Atsbi sheep
• All CBBP programs, if critical follow-up is emplace, are fruit full and bring
economical change for the livelihood of the farmers (Ayenalem et al., 2020).
• The solution has resulted in genetic gain of economically important traits, shown
an increase in farmer income by 20% and helped the community triple
consumption of animal source food (ICARDA, 2021).

45. Community Based Breeding cont….
Menz sheep (Growth, lamb survival and fleece
weight)
• The breeding program in Menz sheep was open
nucleus breeding scheme (done above 20 years).
– Nucleus herd at DBARC
– Village herd at different districts
• CBBP had also started with ILRI- 15 years back and
appreciable genetic improvement has been achieved
in the village program.
• Body weights at birth, 3, 6 and 12 months of age
increased by 0.42, 2.29, 2.46 and 5.24kg,
respectively, in the third generation over those in the
base generation (Gizaw et al., 2013).

46. Community Based Breeding cont…. Menz sheep …
Effect of some non – genetic factors on the growth performance of MSBC (Aschalew et al.,
2020)

47. Community Based Breeding cont…. Menz sheep …
(Aschalew et al., 2020)
(Ayenalem et al., 2020)

48. Bonga sheep (Growth, lamb survival, Lambing
rate)
• Bonga sheep are reared for mutton and have a higher
body weight at maturity and the ewes are moderately
prolific (Metsafe et al., 2017)
• Considerable within breed variability encouraging
selective breeding
• CBBP at Bonga was started in 2009 with ICARDA (Ebadu,
2019).
Community Based Breeding cont…. Bonga sheep …

49. Community Based Breeding cont…. Bonga sheep …
• The Bonga CBBP had the examplenary type
for other breeds because:
– The regional government fully involve
– It reaches above 13 legal cooperatives
– The coops had organized as farmers
union (2011).
– The breeds had recognized as a national
improved sheep breed

50. Community Based Breeding cont…. Bonga sheep …
Growth performance of Bonga sheep across different year (Ebadu Arab, 2019)

51. Community Based Breeding cont…. Bonga sheep …
Ebadu Arab, 2019
(Ayenalem et al., 2020)

52. Community Based Breeding cont…..
Fogera cattle
Enables to establish a linkage between ex-situ
and in-situ herds ,
Allows to maximizes the retention and
continued evolution of the genetic qualities of
farmers’ varieties
Aims to avoid the loss of variation during
rejuvenation

53. Community Based Breeding: cattle
Least squares means (+SE) of growth change in on-farm level (Assemu et al.,
2019)
Parameters N Birth weight N Weaning weight
Overall 567 23.77±0.21 293 85.89±1.07
District * **
Fogera 372 24.01±0.26 190 86.44±1.29
Gondar zuria 195 23.31±0.33 103 84.54±1.92
Year ** *
2015 207 23.08±0.33ab 108 86.16±1.53b
2016 158 24.17±0.34a 87 85.56±1.48b
2017 107 24.52±0.36a 98 87.49±3.05a
2018 95 21.75±0.62c - -
Sex * NS
Male 277 24.15±0.30 137 86.60±1.84
Female 290 23.45±0.27 156 85.30±1.24
Season NS *
Dry 388 23.27±0.35 209 84.27±2.35
Wet 179 23.75±0.56 84 87.51±1.05
Across year and period had shown an inconsistence result; which might be attributed to the presence of
variable management practices adopted by the center.
On the other hand, the result had indicated an improvement in the production performance of the
breed that indicated the potential for selection is higher in the breed (Assemu et al., 2019)

54. Community Based Breeding: cattle
• With the CBBP approach
– age at first mating was reported to be 25 month and 36 month as age at first
calving.
• This result compared with the farmers calve is improved by an average of one year,
which indicates the positive response of selection done on the breeding strategy.
– As traction power is the selective trait of the farmers, calves born through the
CBBP starts plowing in their 31 month while the farmers local bull do the same
work at its 41 months age (10 month reduction).

55. 4. Breed substitution: Chicken
Even if there is no recorded, it is widely believed that the importation of exotic
breeds of chicken goes back to the early 1950s ( Avery A, 2004).
This introduction of exotic breeds can be occurred through importing Day-old
chicks (DOC) which were either imported from Egypt, Germany, Holland and
other countries, pure exotic pullets, Cockerels, Fertile eggs to farmers from
abroad as well as to poultry breeding and multiplication centers
Improved exotic breeds that are better in terms of productivity
use of the Rhode Island Red (RIR) breed that could serve as a dual-
purpose for egg and meat production.
Fayoumi breed has been imported with the expectation of better
productivity, adaptation and disease resistance than the other exotic
breeds in rural setting of Ethiopia (Wilson R, 2010).

56. 4. Breed substitution: Chicken_ Approaches
Candidate importation
D/nt production system)
Production purpose
Evaluation
evaluating only a single imported strain (layers, broilers, or dual
purpose) at a time, concluding that this single strain is accepted or
not based on the results observed on-station and on-farm
conditions, without valid comparisons to alternative strains
Recommendation;
Demonstration and promotion
Multiplication;
Dissemination
Parent importation
Specialized layers and broilers
Multiplication;
Dissemination
Research and higher learning institution Privet poultry farms

57. 4. Breed substitution: Chicken
The total breeder flock in Ethiopia is about 449,750 (Wondmeneh et al., 2017):
layer (87.9%, Dual (6.89%), Broiler (5.1%)
The number of breeder farms(parent stock): farms producing DOCs

58. 4. Breed substitution: Chicken
Least square means of egg production performances of 7 parent stocks
DR = Dominant Red Barred (CR); DS = Dominant Sussex (CR); KK = Koekoek; LB = Lohmann
Brown (Germany); LD = Lohmann Dual (Germany); NB = Novo Brown (France); NC = Novo
Color (France).

59. 4. Breed substitution: Chicken
Performance of the ACGG test strains as
compared to the IC under on-station conditions
of Ethiopia, (ACGG BMGF report , 2017 )
Performance of the ACGG test strains as
compared to the IC under on-farm
conditions of Ethiopia, (ACGG BMGF report ,
2017 )

60. Summary and the way forward
The genetic improvement breeding programs in Ethiopia mainly conducted in
selective breeding (cattle and chicken), community based breeding program
(sheep and cattle), cross breeding (cattle, sheep and Chicken), and breed
substitution (Chicken).
However, Crossbreeding in cattle and sheep and selective breeding (CBBP) in
small ruminants and chicken had bring tangible results.
Results in sheep CBBP at Menz and Bonga sheep brings economic benefit for
their keeper and icon for the country which will in the coming future brings
dollar for the sell of improved genetics.
From the review it is clearly observed that involvement of all stakeholders in the
genetic improvement program brings better result and assure sustainability.

61. Summary and the way forward
Chicken Selective breeding programs should be supported with GWAS to fasten
the genetic improvement; the breeding program should be included
Selective breeding programs should consider the production environment