Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Apr 30;9(5):207.
doi: 10.3390/ani9050207.

Selection Decisions and Trait Preferences for Local and Imported Cattle and Sheep Breeds in Peri-/Urban Livestock Production Systems in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Regina Roessler  1
Affiliations

Selection Decisions and Trait Preferences for Local and Imported Cattle and Sheep Breeds in Peri-/Urban Livestock Production Systems in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Regina Roessler. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: Participatory approaches of designing livestock breeding programs for tropical production systems have been extensively applied for rural livestock, whereas the peri-/urban livestock production sector tends to be widely neglected. In order to ensure the viability of the commercial cattle and sheep production sector in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, structured breed improvement programs are needed. The study aims to better understand selection decisions of cattle and sheep breeders and their trait preferences for local and imported breeds.

Methods: 49 cattle and 31 sheep breeders in peri-/urban areas of the city were approached in personal interviews. Data were analyzed in R version 3.5.1.

Results: The main motivation for keeping cattle and sheep was to generate regular cash income through the selling of milk (cattle only) and surplus animals. Some (modern) breeders used imported breeds because of higher production performances. For imported cattle breeds, improved breeding technologies and management were applied to further enhance production outputs. Nevertheless, local livestock breeds were predominantly used due to their good adaptation.

Conclusions: Selection decisions and trait preferences for local and imported cattle and sheep breeds were strongly based on performance traits. Especially sheep breeders, but also traditional cattle breeders, did not record performance traits and did not take conscious breeding decisions.

Keywords: Burkina Faso; breed and trait preferences; breeding management; cattle; peri-/urban livestock production sector; selection decisions; sheep.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest. The sponsors had no role in the design of the study, in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Composition and structure of cattle herds in Ouagadougou (mean ± standard error); Fulani zebu n = 42 herds, Sahelian zebu/cross n = 25 herds, taurine cross n = 13 herds. Means with different superscript letters are significantly different (Tukey multiple comparison of means; p < 0.05).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mating methods used by cattle breeders in Ouagadougou (n = 49). NU: uncontrolled natural mating, NC: controlled natural mating, AI: artificial insemination.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relative importance (weighted index) of reasons for ranking individual cows as best (a), average (b) and poor (c) within breeds. Maximum of three reasons where the most important reason was weighted by 3, the second most important reason by 2 and the third most important reason by 1.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Composition and structure of sheep flocks in Ouagadougou (mean ± standard error); Mossi sheep flocks n = 25, Sahelian sheep flocks n = 9, crossbred sheep flocks n = 19.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Relative importance (weighted index) of reasons for ranking individual ewes as best (a), average (b) and poor (c) within breeds. A maximum of three reasons, where the most important reason was weighted by 3, the second most important reason by 2 and the third most important reason by 1.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Dossa L.H., Buerkert A., Schlecht E. Cross-location analysis of the impact of household socioeconomic status on participation in urban and peri-urban agriculture in West Africa. Hum. Ecol. 2011;39:569–581. doi: 10.1007/s10745-011-9421-z. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Graefe S., Schlecht E., Buerkert A. Opportunities and challenges of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Niamey, Niger. Outlook Agr. 2008;37:47–56. doi: 10.5367/000000008783883564. - DOI
    1. Wilson R.T. Domestic livestock in African cities: Production, problems and prospects. Open Urban Studies Demogr. J. 2018;4:1–14. doi: 10.2174/2352631901804010001. - DOI
    1. Abdulkadir A., Dossa L.H., Lompo D.J.-P., Abdu N., van Keulen H. Characterization of urban and peri-urban agroecosystems in three West African cities. Int. J. Agr. Sustain. 2012;10:289–314. doi: 10.1080/14735903.2012.663559. - DOI
    1. Roessler R., Mpouam S.E., Muchemwa T., Schlecht E. Emerging development pathways of urban livestock production in rapidly growing West Africa cities. Sustainability. 2016;8:1199. doi: 10.3390/su8111199. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources