Determination of economic weights for breeding traits in indigenous Nguni cattle under in-situ conservation O. Tada a , V. Muchenje a,n , J. Madzimure a , K. Dzama b a Department of Livestock and Pasture Science, University of Fort Hare, P. Bag X1314, Alice 5700, South Africa b Department of Animal Sciences, Stellenbosch University, P. Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa article info Article history: Received 4 January 2013 Received in revised form 8 April 2013 Accepted 9 April 2013 Keywords: Choice experiment Age at first calving Aggression and mating behavior Body condition score Tick infestation abstract This study was conducted to determine the economic weights of most preferred traits in young breeding Nguni bulls and first parity cows. Fifty-four farmers from low-input cattle production enterprises participated in the choice experiment. Sixteen individual animal profiles were formulated from four traits of three levels each using a fractional orthogonal design of SPSS 14.0 (2005). 120 pair-wise choices were deduced for each breeding animal class. A total of 6480 (54 Â 120) observations were obtained for each class of the animals. Data was subjected to multinomial logit (MNL) models using econometric software NLOGIT 4.0.1 Version (2007). All computed economic values for bull traits were significant (p o0.05). The economic weights of bull traits were poor body condition score (-0.99 70.095), good body condition score (0.45 70.073), over-conditioned (base level), low tick infestation (0.57 70.103), medium tick infestation (0.58 70.084), high tick infestation (base level), high aggression and mating behavior (4.41 70.095), average aggression and mating behavior (2.53 70.094), and low aggression and mating behavior (base level). The economic weights of first parity cow traits were poor body condition score (-0.06 70.055), good body condition score (1.08 70.061), over-conditioned (base level), low tick infestation (1.50 70.059), medium tick infestation (0.83 70.067), high tick infestation (base level), age at first calving of ≤27 months (2.37 70.068), age at first calving of 27–36 months (1.30 70.076), and age at first calving of 436 months (base level). Farmers were willing to pay R37,939 (US$4864) for a bull with high aggression and mating behavior score and R17,185 (US$2203) for a first parity cow of less than 27 months old. Enterprise ownership and demographics factors of the farmers were significant in determining economic weights within trait levels. Economic weights were high for reproductive efficiency of the breeding animals followed by the high adaptive character- istics. The choice experiment procedure can be the tool for determining importance of animal characteristics under low-input production systems. It is recommended to make use of the economic weights of preferential traits in designing selection models. & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Diversity of an indigenous genetic resource is a key component for a low-input production system to over- come destabilizing factors of uncertainty over future production environments such as climate change, diseases and changing market demands (Ruto et al., 2008; Kassie et al., 2010; Zander, 2011). The indigenous Nguni cattle breed in South Africa is an example of Animal Genetic Resources (AnGR) currently under in-situ conservation in the communal and small-scale farming enterprises of the Eastern Cape Province (Muchenje et al., 2008; Tada et al., 2012). The majority of the farmers in these sectors (67%) perceived the low-input in-situ conservation as profitable because the indigenous breed possesses traits of economic Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/livsci Livestock Science 1871-1413/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2013.04.011 n Corresponding author. Tel.: +27 40602 2059; fax: +27 86 628 2967. E-mail addresses: vmuchenje@ufh.ac.za, vmuchenje@hotmail.com (V. Muchenje). Livestock Science 155 (2013) 8–16