| Sumario: | Background: A study defining breeding goal traits pertinent to the smallholder and large commercial dairy farms in Ethiopian highlands is limited. Accordingly, this study was designed to identify the most important dairy cattle traits to be incorporated into breeding objectives for dairy cattle herds belonging to the small and large commercial farms in Ethiopian highlands.
Methods: This study used data collected from a representative sample of 400 respondents from 20 districts participating in dairy herd registration and record-keeping initiatives in Ethiopia. The survey design purposively incorporated both smallholder and large-scale dairy farms to accurately reflect the diverse structural characteristics of dairy production within the Highlands system. To analyze the collected data and assess the preference ranking order, a multinomial ordered logit regression model was employed.
Result: The study pinpointed the existence of differences in the ranking order of traits among the top five traits between small and large dairy farms. The order of ranking for disease resistance, feed requirement and animal size varied for large farms with unique preference for higher milk yielder and larger size cow, demanding a separate selection criteria. Respondents’ from small farm placed disease resistance as the second most important trait, underscoring the need in adaptive capabilities of cows. As a result, the adoption of breeding strategies to maintain low levels of exotic inheritance or apply a restricted selection index to address the preference for adaptive capabilities is expected from responsible institution. Therefore, the dairy cattle breeding goals for smallholder and large commercial farms incorporating these identified dairy cattle traits as aggregate merit should be set as balanced breeding objective. Hence, it’s necessary to establish suitable economic weights for these traits to apply a selection index for dairy cattle evaluation.
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