Animal Feed type

 Aftermath grazing and Crop residues 

Stubble grazing is an important source of feed that is common in Ethiopia , although this will largely be determined by the inherent productivity of the land, crop type, and other environmental variables. Stubble grazing occurs right after crop harvest at the end of September and/or first week of October and continues until feed is completely depleted in January/February. In the first few days of crop harvest, farmers in general are not willing to entertain the grazing of their stubble by other people’s livestock, and they exhibit flexibility in allowing other to use the stubble only after the remaining feeds are apparently of low quantity and quality.

Crop residues are the fibrous by-products which result from the cultivation of cereals, pulses, oil plants, roots and tubers and represent an important feed resource for smallholder farmers in developing countries. These residues provide fodder at low cost since they are byproducts of existing crop production systems. They are important adjuncts to natural pastures and planted forages and are often used to fill feed gaps during periods of acute shortage of other feed resources. According MoA of Ethiopia  to on average, crop residues provide 5 to 15 percent of total feed intake and in some exceptional cases this could increase up to 50 percent .

Agro-industrial by-products

Agro-industrial by-products produced in Ethiopia include by-products from flour milling, sugar factory, oil processing factories, abattoir, and breweries. These products are mainly used for dairy, fattening and commercial poultry production and the scope for their wider use by smallholder producers is low due to availability and price.Agro-industrial by-products have special value in feeding livestock mainly in urban and peri-urban livestock production system, as well as in situations where the productive potential of the animals is relatively high and require high nutrient supply. The major agro-industrial byproducts commonly used are obtained from flour milling industries, edible oil extracting plants, breweries and sugar factories. The current trends of increasing urban population has a significant effect on the establishment of agro-industries due to the corresponding increasing demand for the edible main products. Agro-industrial by-products are rich in energy and/or protein contents or both. They have low fiber content, high digestibility and energy values compared with the other class of feeds  also reported more than 35% CP and 50-70% in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD) for oil seed cakes and 18-20% CP and more than 80% IVOMD for flour milling by-products. Supplementing ruminants fed low quality feeds with agro-industrial by-products enables them to perform well due to higher nutrient density to correct the nutrient deficiencies in the basal diet.

Improved forage crops

Over the past three decades several introduced forages were tested on-station in different ecological zones, and considerable efforts were made to test the adaptability of different species of pasture and forage crops under varying agro-ecological conditions. As a result, quite a number of useful forages have been selected for different zones, although the adoption rate is extremely low. Improved pasture and forages have been grown and used in government ranches, state farms, farmer's demonstration plots and dairy and fattening areas.

Forage crops are commonly grown for feeding dairy cattle with oats and vetch mixtures, fodder beet, elephant grass mixed with siratro and desmodium species, alfa-alfa, vetebar, Rhodes/Lucerne mixture, phalaris/trifolium mixture, hedgerows of sesbania, leucaena and tree-Lucerne being common ones. Due to unprecedented population increase, land scarcity and crop dominated farming, there has been limited introduction of improved pasture and forages to smallholder farming communities and the adoption of this technology by smallholder mixed farmers has been generally slow. This is clearly reflected in many parts of the country where the agricultural extension system has tried hard to introduce and distribute different improved forage species and yet the success rate, measured in terms of improved animal

production benefits, is below expectation.

Concentrate manufactured feed 

Feed processing involves the formulation and mixing of diverse feeds to be consumed by different livestock species.The major ingredients used are wheat and maize grains, wheat bran and middling, noug cake, limestone,soy-bean,prosopis-flour, molasses effective microorganism, crush straw, bone and blood meals, and salt. These mixed feeds are often fed to dairy cows, and some small scale cattle fasteners also make use of such feeds 

Livestock and Livestock feed in Ethiopia

Livestock production plays important roles to the economy of smallholder farmers and  the national economy. In Ethiopia, both farming and pastoral households are largely dependent on livestock for their livelihood systems. Livestock also generate more than 85% of the farm cash income. In terms of contribution to the national economy, livestock contribute about 13– 16% of total GDP, and the share to total exports is about 16%. However, the level of contribution from the livestock sub-sector is generally low compared to other African countries. There are a multitude of constraints that influence the productivity of livestock. The availability of feed resources and the nutritional quality of the available feeds are the most important factors that determine the productivity of livestock. Livestock production throughout the world is dependent on a variety feed resources. Worldwide, there are more than 560 different types of feed resources derived from herbaceous forages, trees and shrubs, crop residues, food crop green feeds, food crop roots and tubers, concentrates and agro-industrial by-products, mineral supplements, and others. In Ethiopia, such feed resources support different livestock production systems that are part of the mixed subsistence farming.

Ethiopia’s dry lands account for 65% of the country, but support less than 20% of the nation’s population of 85 million. In contrast to the highlands, which are dominated by smallholder farming, extensive livestock keeping plays a central role in the livelihoods of people living in the dry lands. Livestock provide milk and are sold to exporters to raise cash for food and clothes, to cover health and school fees and for other general household purposes, while these resources hugely affected by recurrent drought repeatedly and affect the household’s economy of livestock dependent community. 

In Ethiopia, pastoralists graze their livestock in spatially extensive grazing systems characterized by large-scale seasonal movements among pastures as well as intra-seasonal grazing orbits in proximity to water sources. Livestock forage production is limited by rainfall, which is highly variable. Pastoral livestock movements are responsive to variable distributions of forage in space and time. Periodic droughts are intrinsic to the system, leading to shortages of forage for livestock and food insecurity for pastoralists. The spatially extensive and time-varying nature of the forage resource, coupled with constraints on livestock movements created by water distributions, topography and infrastructure, necessitates an approach that is very different from the approach to assessments of livestock feed. This assessment will broaden the options for ensuring supplies of feed resources are assessed base on local needs, practices and opportunities. Lack of adequate and consistent supply of feed is a major constraint adversely affecting the Emergency livestock feed Support intervention.