Reproductive performance
The productive and reproductive performance of camel can be affected by several factors like inadequate feed, incidence of disease, occurrence of drought and poor veterinary service. This is in line with [6, 9]. The result of the present study on the overall average age at first calving, calving interval and number of service per conception was in agreement with the observation of [7] in mille of Afar region and Jijiga, Somalia region. However, the mean values are lower than the reported by Yohannes et al. [15].
The mean value of age at first calving in Abeala and Chifra district were 6.31 and 7.32 year, respectively and higher than the values those reported by Tefera and Fesah [16], Musa et al. [14], Mayouf et al. [17] and Sisay et al. [12]. The overall calving interval in the study was 2.16 year. This finding is in congruent with [17, 12] but higher than the values reported by Musa et al. [14] and Tarek et al. [18].
The number of service per conception in Abeala, Chifra, Dubti and Gewane were 1.1, 1.06, 1.07 and 1.10 year, respectively. The current finding is lower than the value reported by EI-Malky et al. [19]. According to the report of Tarek et al. [18], the number of service per conception of camel with supplementation of Zn-Methionine and without is 2.7 and 4.3 years, respectively. The number of calves per she-camel in the study was lower than the value of number of calve per she-camel in El-Oued region, Algeria [17].
Brigitte [20] reported that the average age at first calving and calving interval of 4.87 and 2.28 years, respectively, under pastoral management in northern Kenya. On the other hand, average age at first calving 4.78 year and calving interval 23.8 month in pastoralists of Nigeria [21]. The average values for age at first calving and age at first service in the present finding were higher than the reported by Brigitte [20], Abdussamad et al. [21] and Simenew et al. [6]. This might be due to poor availability veterinary service, high incidence of disease and poor management system. The mean age at first maturity in the current study was 5.38 year. This finding is in line with [6]. The result of the present finding on the calving interval and number of service per conception (NSC) were lower with the values reported for [17] for Mille and Amibara district, [6] in Somalia region.
The purpose or breeding objective of the respondents in the study were milk, meat, wealth and social status. This finding is in concurrent with those reports of Abdussamad et al [21] and Faye [22]. The main source of breeding bull of camel in the study area was home based breed bull, neighboring bull and common bull. This result is in line with the report of [9, 6] in Mille and Amibara district of Afar and [6] in Somalia region. However, few respondents have no choice to use first or second for priority of bull for mating, while they enforced to use either donated or unknown bull with no clear family history of the breeding bulls. This finding agrees with the finding what had been reported by [23] in Ankole cattle.
The primordial trait preference for selection of breeding she-camel were based on milk yield, which is ranked first. This is in line with the report of Yosef et al. [9]. Body size and conformation, disease and parasite resistance, fast growth and adaptation-preferred traits followed milk yield. According to the report of Yosef et al. [9] adaptability, breeding efficiency, growth, ability to give birth to more female and draught capacity ranked as second, third, fourth and fifth followed milk production.
In the current study, the major challenge or bottleneck of productive and reproductive performance of she-camel in afar region are presented in Table 6. The major camel productive performance hinder were inadequate feed, disease incidence, poor veterinary service and lack of modern breeding program. The present finding is in concurrent with [9, 6] those who reported similar challenge of camel productive performance in Afar and Somali region. The prevalent challenge of reproductive performance of she-camel in the present finding were poor feed and nutrition, long calving interval and age at first service, calf mortality and abortion. Abdisa et al. [24] reported the main hinder reproductive performance of she-camel was late maturity, long calving interval and calf mortality in Yabello District, Oromia Regional State,
Effect of districts on milk yield and body measurement of camel
Districts is the main source of variation in body measurement of she-camel in the study area and this might be due to the management level/non genetic factors. This finding is in line with the report of Mahrous et al. [25] and Abdallah and Bernard [26] geographically difference is main source of variation in body measurement of camel population in Saudi Arabia. The body length, hind leg length and foreleg length of camel in this study was 145.35 cm, 149.24 cm and 163.78 cm, respectively. This value is higher than Shinille and Mille district [9] but lower than in India [27, 2]. The superiority of body measurement in this study over Shinille and Jijiga Somali region could be a result of the variation of feed availability and management systems. Height at wither and hump circumference in this study was 187.46 cm and 78.51 cm, respectively. This result is in line with the report of [9, 26]. The calculated average hind leg length and foreleg length of Gewane, Dubti, and Chefra camels are higher than values reported by [9] in Mille district of Afar region.
The value of height girth of she-camel in this study was higher when compared to the report of [2, 9, 28] in Jijiga, Mille and India, respectively. The average calculated hump circumference in this finding was 78.51 cm and lower than the value reported by [9] in Jijiga and Mille and [27] in double humped camel of Ladakh, India. The lower value of hump circumference recorded for this study may be due to the inadequate feed availability and disease prevalence. The chest girth obtained in this finding are higher with the result of Rashaidi and Bishari camel breeds in Sudan [29, 30].
Milk yield and under conformation traits
There was an excessive source of variation in milk yield and udder conformation traits of she-camel (Table 9). This might be different factors like udder health, stage of lactation, feed quality and husbandry practice [31]. The average milk yield obtained in this study was higher with the report of [32] under intensive management of dairy camel farm located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This difference might be due to genetic and non-genetic factors. The average value of DFT, DRT, USC and USH finding in this study was lower than the average value of dromedary camel with on farm in Sudan [33] and udder size length with on station study in Saudi Arabia [34]. The mean value of milk yield and udder length resulted in this study was lower than the average value of Dromedries camels under large-scale camel dairy farm [31]. Udder measurements reported in this finding were lower than the reported by Atigui et al. [35] for Maghrebi camel's intensive system and Eisa et al. [36] for Arabi-Lahwee camels in semi intensive system. Furthermore, udder measurements are in concurrent with the value reported by Ayadi et al. [34] at late sage of lactation.