Review Article
Brhane Gebremariam
Abstract
Ethiopia endowed with a large livestock population in Africa as well as in the world. Dairy farming is one of the worldwide practiced farming including Ethiopia. The main aim of this review is to know the overall performance (both productive and reproductive) of crossbred dairy cattle in Ethiopia. According to inputs, agro-ecology, the intensity of production dairy farming is categorized as low land pastoralism, high land smallholder, urban and peri-urban small scale dairy farm, and intensive (specialized commercial) dairy farming systems. The feed resource for low land pastoralism and highland smallholders is mostly natural pastures and crop by-products. However, for urban and peri-urban small scale and intensive farms is purchased hay, green legum, and other concentrates. Ethiopia has diversified dairy cattle breeds and the cross breeds have different production performance. Those differences in performance within and between breeds could be due to management activity. There are also constraints that can influence the performance of dairy cattle like shortage of feed, poor genetic performance, and poor management systems. The existing opportunity to improve their performance includes the presence of diversified breeds as well as introducing of artificial insemination service technology. Besides these, the productive and reproductive performance can be improved through good management. Therefore, good forage development strategy and good breeding strategies must be undertaken by the government as well as other concerned bodies.