Cattle fattening practices, marketing system: Cattle fattening practices, marketing system and on-farm performance evaluation M.Lemlem, G.Endalkachew and T.Mengistie

The study was conducted in Gazgibla, Sekota and Ziquala districts of Wag-hemra zone with the objectives to understand farmers' traditional cattle fattening and marketing practice, to monitor the on farm fattening cattle performance, to determine the profitability of cattle fattening farmers and to identify the challenge and opportunity of cattle fattening in the study area. The study used cross-sectional survey and monitoring of cattle fattening practices (on 15 fattening cattle's). 150 cattle fatteners were selected purposively and interviewed using semi-structured questionnaire. Moreover, fo cus group discussions, heart girth measurement, field observations and market monitoring were done to enrich the data. Data were analyzed using (SPSS version 20, 2011) and (SAS version 9.1, 2002) statistical software as per the type of data.