Abstract:
Goat production has become a common trend in rural communities where by a number of people rear goats or social and economic reasons. despite the advantages associated with goat production, effective rural production of goats is greatly challenged by a number of factors. based on this, the study was conducted to identify management practices limiting effective goat production in kadungulu sub county. semi structured questionnaires were administered to goa tproducers in the study area. one hundred ten respondents were randomly selected from the parishes of kagwara, kabulabula, kadungulu and lruko in kadungulu sub county, serere district. data was analysed using the statistical package for social sciences (spss) version 16. four point one percent of the respondents dewormed their goats every three months while 41.1%, 39.7% and 15% dewormed goats when sick, yearly, every six: months respectively. most of the respondents (78.2%) controlled external parasites whenever they saw them on the skin of their goats. provision of supplements to goats was only done by 26.4% of the respondents and the main supplements were crop residues (91.8%) and mineral leak (8.2%). most of the respondents (76.4%) did not have a breeding buck and resorted to borrowing (51.2%)) taking the female to someone's male for breeding (36.6%) and leaving the females to look for the male on their own (12.2%). housing of goats was mainly on the verandas of residential houses (75.5%). it was therefore concluded that parasite and disease control in the study area was generally poor. the goats mainly fed on natural pastures with limited supplementation and most of the respondents did not own a breeding, buck housing of goats was mainly on the verandas of residential houses with irregular cleaning. the findings from this survey call for extension efforts directed at improved management and disease control strategies.
