An assessment of goat production practices in jigawa-state

Abstract

This study evaluated the socio-economic characteristics of goat farmers, their production practices and constraints to production in Jigawa State. Respondents for the study were selected using a two-stage sampling technique. Primary data were collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that the majority (73.7%) of the producers are males and most (32.4%) were within the age bracket of 26-35 years, many (39.1%) of them had household sizes of (1-5) and majority of the respondents (53.1%) had informal education. Also, the results revealed that the major constraint to goat production in the study location was lack of initial capital (43.0%), followed by disease and parasites (30.7%), then theft and predators (12.8%). This study recommends that goat farmers should come together and form cooperatives; thereby they could have access to soft loans hence improving production, in terms of medication and capital for investment and expansion.