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Production objectives and breeding practices of urban goat and sheep keepers in West Africa: regional analysis and implications for the development of supportive breeding programs

Overview of attention for article published in SpringerPlus, June 2015
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Title
Production objectives and breeding practices of urban goat and sheep keepers in West Africa: regional analysis and implications for the development of supportive breeding programs
Published in
SpringerPlus, June 2015
DOI 10.1186/s40064-015-1075-7
Pubmed ID
Authors

Luc Hippolyte Dossa, Mamadou Sangaré, Andreas Buerkert, Eva Schlecht

Abstract

To better understand the relative importance of the multi-purpose functions of small ruminants for their urban owners and related breeding practices including selection criteria, we undertook a comparative analysis across the West African cities of Kano (Nigeria), Bobo Dioulasso (Burkina Faso) and Sikasso (Mali). Semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect the required information from 301 sheep farmers (100, 102 and 99 in Kano, Bobo Dioulasso and Sikasso) and 306 goat farmers (100, 99 and 107 in Kano, Bobo Dioulasso and Sikasso). Sheep and goats were kept for a variety of reasons including income generation, insurance (sale for cash to meet unexpected expenditures) and economic security (sale for cash to support foreseeable expenses), social/religious functions and prestige in ownership. The relative importance given by respondents to the different functions varied significantly (p < 0.001) across cities and between species within a city. However, irrespective of city, both species were primarily kept for their financial functions whereby sheep were perceived as having higher economic value. Although breeding practices were very similar in many respects (low practice of castration, culling and replacement strategies, uncontrolled mating, no record keeping and selection criteria), the emphasis put on each selection criteria varied across cities and between species. Irrespective of city, most of the goats were of the indigenous type while keeping crossbred animals and/or maintaining more than one genotype in the same flock was more commonly practiced by sheep keepers. This points to a higher motivation for strategic breeding among sheep than goat keepers and indicates that the former might be interested in joining carefully designed participatory flock improvement programs.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 74 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 74 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 14 19%
Researcher 14 19%
Student > Master 13 18%
Student > Doctoral Student 8 11%
Student > Bachelor 2 3%
Other 10 14%
Unknown 13 18%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 34 46%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 6 8%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 3 4%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 2 3%
Social Sciences 2 3%
Other 7 9%
Unknown 20 27%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 24 June 2015.
All research outputs
#20,281,599
of 22,815,414 outputs
Outputs from SpringerPlus
#1,461
of 1,851 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#220,510
of 264,785 outputs
Outputs of similar age from SpringerPlus
#60
of 81 outputs
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