Chapters authored
Economics and Profitability of Goat Breeding in the Maghreb Region
This chapter presents a review of the North-African goats, with particular focus on their current state, constraints and research prospects and development. In recent years, goat milk and meat have become acceptable and recognized as the source of healthy nutrient in the Maghreb countries. However, goat populations are generally confronted with severe nutritional deficits during feed scarcity period which exacerbate disease and health troubles and consequently low performances. They are mainly elevated in small herds and their productions are commercialized throughout an informal sector. Thus, if the informal sector is to be convinced to market goats commercially through formal ways, then knowledge of the economics of goat farming should be provided in the Maghreb countries. Under the economics of farming goat, we will investigate the trend in the demand and supply of goat milk or meat, trend in the number of goats slaughtered, and the cost of raising goats in the Maghreb region. We are going to evaluate the economics and profitability of goats as farm animal and their marketing strategies in the Maghreb region.
Part of the book: Goat Science
Ovine Artificial Insemination in the Maghreb Region: Present Status and Future Prospects
Artificial insemination (AI) plays a key role in the genetic improvement of farm animals. Although it is widely used for cattle in the Maghreb region, it is scarcely applied in sheep at farm level. This is not only due to low fertility and irregular results that range between 30 to less than 76% for both cervical AI with fresh semen and laparoscopic insemination with frozen semen in most of studied breeds and also because of low results related to conditioning of fresh, chilled and frozen rams′ semen. An appropriately literature analysis was conducted to highlight the importance of sheep breeding in the Maghreb region particularly in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia and to assess the efficiency of AI for Magrebin ovine breeds, the results related to different semen conditioning techniques and different AI procedures. The main factors affecting AI results are also presented. Finally, this chapter presents different strategies to improve AI efficiency at farm level in the future and the challenges to extrapolate experimental AI techniques to field conditions at a large scale.
Part of the book: Sheep Farming