ASSESSMENT OF SHEEP PRODUCTION PRACTICES IN YOBE STATE NIGERIA

Abstract

This study evaluated the socio-economic characteristics of sheep farmers, their production practices and constraints to production in Yobe state. Respondents for the study were selected using two-stage sampling techniques. Primary data were collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that the majority (51.67%) of the producers are males and most (23.33%) were within the age bracket of 15 - 25 and 56 - 65 years many (30%) of them had household sizes of (11 - 15) and majority of the respondents (37.08%) had secondary
education. Also, the results revealed that the major constraints to sheep production in the study location was lack of initial capital (25.42%) followed by theft and predators (22.5%) then disease and parasite (20%). This study recommends that sheep farmers should come together and form cooperatives; thereby they could have access to soft loans hence improving production, in terms of medication capital for investment and expansion.