Breeding practices and preferred traits of indigenous chicken in Western Oromia region, Ethiopia

The study was conducted in Bako Tibe and Dano districts of Western Oromia region, Ethiopia with the objectives to generate the relevant information regarding breeding practices, objectives, and farmers' trait preferences of local chickens under scavenging production systems.Data were collected using semi-structured formal questionnaires and focus group discussions.A total of 119 households (60 from Bako Tibe and 59 from Dano district), were randomly selected using a multi-stage sampling technique.The study revealed that egg consumption, chick sale, and meat consumption were the main purposes of keeping indigenous chicken in BakoTibe and Dano districts.The result indicates that the majority of the respondents (87.43%) were practiced selection of hens and cocks for breeding purposes emphasizing the production of a high number of eggs, body size, brooding ability, leg length to select hens.Whereas body size, growth rate, leg length, comb shape in their order of importance to select breeding cocks.The selection of these traits indicates that egg and meat production was the major aims of the farmer to raises chickens in the study districts.Generally, chicken production is an important economic activity to improve the livelihood of smallholder households.Therefore the future research has been focused on the farmers' production objectives and trait preference of chickens to improve the productivity o f indigenous chickens through the selection and crossbreeding of local chickens with exotic breeds in the semi -scavenging chicken production systems in the study area.