Zoonotic and animal diseases - Animal nutrition
The low productivity of livestock in Ethiopia is attributed mainly to the feed shortages and seasonality of feed supply. In the central highlands Getnet (1999) reported that a typical small holder farm with 2.5 ha of land in the Ethiopian central highlands produces a total of approximately 6 tones of DM from crop residues and grazing in a normal year. Native pasture quality of the Ethiopian highlands is low in quality having low energy and protein content and high amount of fibre. The energy value of native pasture is reported to be less than 7.5 MJ/Kg DM (Zinash et al., 1995) and about 8.6 MJ/kg DM for native hay and the fiber fraction of the native pasture is high enough (70%0 to reduce intake and digestibility (Seyoum and Zinash, 1998). The CP content is also less than 7% for the pasture and hay (Gashaw, 1992),
which is very much below the requirement for adequate microbial function in the rumen.
