The reaction of secondary school and university students toward COVID-19-induced lockdown.

Background: The Coronavirus pandemic triggered a worldwide partial lockdown. The lockdown instigated the school's shutdown making the students follow their courses in the virtual modalities while staying at home. Methods: The data were collected using an online survey using a semi-structured questionnaire. The study involved anonymous as well as voluntary 77 secondary schools (Grades 9th to 12th) and 132 university students (class standing 1st to 5th year). Results: The lockdown introduced excruciating experiences for most of the students; however, it also created unanticipated opportunities to learn new skills and develop insights on how to mitigate unforeseen crises while remaining reasonably productive. The steps taken to reduce exposure to the coronavirus infection showed a gender discrepancy. Accordingly, males were disproportionately taken risks regardless of the curfew imposed, while females were deeply concerned about the lockdown-induced break of social connections. Students who were attending public schools, presumably from low-income families were found to be more productive during the lockdown compared to their private school counterparts. This shows that, in some instances, the Coronavirus pandemic is a blessing in disguise. The lockdown created mixed feelings; accordingly, the students reported significantly varied responses towards it. This also introduced some inconsistencies in the response of the students. Perceptions about the lockdown and its impact in most instances significantly varied among students, which unlocked the opportunities to learn new lessons on how to manage unprecedented crises. Conclusion: Policymakers need to take into account gender and living standard while developing strategies to mitigate unprecedented challenges.

COVID-19: socio-economic impacts and challenges in the working group.

The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the lives of the global community, consequently, many parts of people's lives have been jeopardized. Therefore, there is a need to curb the spread of coronavirus. Accordingly, countries are enforcing partial or full-fledged lockdown to restrict all sorts of socialization. However, studies reported that people have despised the ordinances. The study assessed the economic, societal, and psychological impacts of the pandemic and the practice of abiding by curfews by staying and working from home. One hundred thirty-three government, private, and self-employed workers have anonymously and voluntarily completed an online survey. The change in lifestyle associated with the pandemic influenced the working group economically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. In addition to inflation in the prices of food and commodity, workers have spent unintended costs for the prevention of the COVID-19 such as hand sanitizer and facemask. Furthermore, staying home was unbearable for the majority of the respondents and led to stress, boredom, and confined feelings which forced them to leave their homes to liberate themselves. Nevertheless, flexibility in time management, reduced commuting, and being safe from COVID-19 made the lockdown advantageous for some of the respondents. Telecommuting is influenced by factors such as home suitability to work, availability of supplies, and the behavior of the workers. Home suitability to work and access to vital working facilities varied between government, private, and self-employed individuals. Government employees exceptionally lack appropriate homes and resources to work. Therefore, to minimize the impact of COVID-19 on people's life it is important to make timely adjustments to the enforced orders to make them more productive.

Sustainable intensification of indigenous village chicken production system: matching the genotype with the environment.

The multi-purpose indigenous village chickens (IVCs) are kept in low- and middle-income countries. IVCs are hardy and are resilient to disease, hostile environment, global warming, and climate change. The IVCs are a little impacted by anthropogenic effects; consequently, they possess high genetic and phenotypic diversity. Likewise, the genetic structure of IVCs is principally shaped by natural selection, which enables them to accumulate high genetic polymorphism and to adaptively radiate. Regardless of this, the genetic wealth of IVCs has been eroded by indiscriminate crossbreeding. Emerging infectious and non-infectious diseases, flawed assumptions, predation, inadequate nutrition, poorly maintained night enclosures, and underdeveloped market infrastructure, and the overlooked multiple-use values and unique attributes of IVCs have threatened their mere survival. The IVCs lay a few eggs and produce less meat, which cannot meet the growing (existing) demand. However, the demand for IVC products is growing attributable to the flavor and texture of eggs and meat, and they are well-aligned with the subsistence farming system. The several use values and ecosystem services provided by IVCs have been increasingly realized. Enhanced production can be attained through sustainable use of local (genetic) resources and by scaling up and out best practices. Genetic improvement needs to mainly rely upon IVC genetic resources and should have to match the genotype with the environment. Moreover, it has to maintain the genetic polymorphism that has been accumulated for time immemorial to respond to unanticipated changes in the production system and consumers' demand. In this review, enhanced management, selection strategies, and genetic crosses including the crossing of commercial chickens with red junglefowl have been proposed to sustainably intensify the IVC production system.

The genetic basis and robustness of naked neck mutation in chicken.

Chicken is a homeothermic animal; consequently, regardless of fluctuation in weather conditions, it maintains constant body temperature. However, in hot regions and seasons, chickens suffer from heat stress. To dissipate excess heat, besides modifying the environment, which is costly, however, chickens with efficient heat dissipation capacity might be utilized. Naked neck chickens have a higher capacity for heat loss attributable to reduced feather mass. The naked neck mutation (Na) was originated from a large insertion (~ 180 bp) integrated ~ 260-kb downstream of a protein-coding gene-GDF7 (Growth Differentiation Factor 7). Na possesses a cis-regulatory function and upregulates the expression of GDF7-a gene that exhibits a tissue-specific effect by the sensitizing action of retinoic acid. Na suppresses the development of feathers in the neck and vent. Na shows autosomal incomplete dominance and regulates several developmental processes. Na usually segregates at low frequency, which might be attributed to limited socio-cultural preferences. Specifically, in hot and humid regions, although to a varying extent, Na enhances performance, immunocompetence, and resilience to disease both in the homozygous and heterozygous state. Occasionally, naked neck chickens (especially the homozygous ones) lose comparative advantage in cool environments. Homozygous Na also results in high embryo death and reduced hatchability and diminishes floating and flying capacity. Nevertheless, selective breeding of naked neck chickens for fertility traits enhances the performance and welfare of chickens in hot and humid regions. The comparative advantage of Na needs to be studied not only from a temperature perspective and under controlled experiment but also from humidity, body weight, feed intake (absolute and relative to body weight), age, agroecology insights, and under field condition. Due to the incomplete dominant expression pattern of Na, studies need to separately report their findings for homozygous and heterozygous naked neck chicken.

Indigenous village chicken production: a tool for poverty alleviation, the empowerment of women, and rural development.

Indigenous village chickens (IVCs) greatly contribute to food security and rural development. Consequently, IVCs cover incidental expenses, economically empower women, and support the livelihood of disadvantaged groups. Interestingly, ritual practices of traditional communities across the Global South utilise IVCs. IVCs provide several ecosystem services and possess adaptation traits resulting in their being able to survive and reproduce with minimal care. Explorative behaviours and general hardiness aroused from natural selection enable IVCs to adapt to a wide range of agroecology and management systems. IVCs are mainly kept in the extensive production system with scarce production inputs. Their management history and uncontrolled mating have enabled IVCs to have unique and diverse phenotypes. Flock size is small, typically less than 100, and the family flock consists of birds of both sexes and different ages making management a demanding task. IVCs lay few eggs (~ 40 to 60 annually) and have small body weights (~ 1.6 kg for adult cock) and low growth rates; nevertheless, they offer multiple as well as unique products and services. Productivity can be improved significantly with appropriate changes to management. There is a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and practice associated with IVC production, which together with identified cost-effective interventions incorporating improvements in management, nutrition, disease control, and/or genetics have the potential to achieve profitable and sustainable production for the benefit of subsistence farmers and their families.

Genome-wide analysis reveals the extent of EAV-HP integration in domestic chicken.

BACKGROUND: EAV-HP is an ancient retrovirus pre-dating Gallus speciation, which continues to circulate in modern chicken populations, and led to the emergence of avian leukosis virus subgroup J causing significant economic losses to the poultry industry. We mapped EAV-HP integration sites in Ethiopian village chickens, a Silkie, Taiwan Country chicken, red junglefowl Gallus gallus and several inbred experimental lines using whole-genome sequence data. RESULTS: An average of 75.22 ± 9.52 integration sites per bird were identified, which collectively group into 279 intervals of which 5 % are common to 90 % of the genomes analysed and are suggestive of pre-domestication integration events. More than a third of intervals are specific to individual genomes, supporting active circulation of EAV-HP in modern chickens. Interval density is correlated with chromosome length (P < 2.31(-6)), and 27 % of intervals are located within 5 kb of a transcript. Functional annotation clustering of genes reveals enrichment for immune-related functions (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Our results illustrate a non-random distribution of EAV-HP in the genome, emphasising the importance it may have played in the adaptation of the species, and provide a platform from which to extend investigations on the co-evolutionary significance of endogenous retroviral genera with their hosts.

Village chickens management in Wolaita zone of southern Ethiopia.

Little effort has been made to improve village chickens housing, feeding, and health care. Due to this, the amount of output obtained is usually low. The aim of this study was to elicit farmers' knowledge on the routine husbandry practices of village chickens. One hundred nineteen farmers were one-on-one interviewed in the highland and lowland areas of Wolaita zone (southern Ethiopia) to generate the dataset used in this analysis. We found that all the respondents supplemented the scavenging chickens with locally available feed resources. However, the amount of supplementary feeds provided hardly meets the nutritional requirement of the flock. As a result, farmers were forced to practice a sort of preferential feeding mainly based on laying performance and the scavenging ability of different classes of the family flock. Moreover, there is a wide difference in the amount and type of feed available among seasons. This variation has forced farmers to resort on strategic supplementation to overcome the adverse effect of inherent feed (grain) scarcity on chickens' performance especially during wet season. Feed loss should be kept at a minimum by using feeding troughs, and a fraction of money obtained from selling of the chickens and eggs needs to be set aside to purchase feed. The risk of disease was higher during main rain season (June to September). Besides providing sanitary condition and feed supplementation, capacitating the veterinary service and validating the efficacy of ethno-veterinary practices through objective studies is required to improve the health status of village chickens. Majority of the farmers use rudimentary types of in-house built shelters to protect their chickens from adverse effects of bad weather, predation, and theft. This indicates the importance of constructing proper types of shelters from locally (freely) available or inexpensive materials. The existing tradition of responsibility sharing among family members while doing the routine husbandry practices needs to be strengthened to maximize the efficient use of family's labor force. This improvement plan needs to be mainly implemented through adoption of the existing best traditional practices and through the rational use of cheap and readily available local resources.

Uses and flock management practices of scavenging chickens in Wolaita Zone of southern Ethiopia.

Rearing of scavenging chickens is among the most commonly practiced farm activities in Ethiopia. This system is dominated by indigenous chickens. Output from indigenous chickens is low due to poor management and absence of intense selection that is intended to improve economically important traits. This showed that village chickens are rather evolved for adaptation traits. However, the level of risk is low, and this has made rearing of scavenging chickens a choice of farm activity for smallholder farmers. The objective of this study was to characterize the scavenging chickens' production system in Wolaita Zone. Single-visit survey involving individual interview of 119 farmers and 6 focus group discussions was used to collect the data. Our results showed that rearing of scavenging chickens was constrained especially by disease and predation problems. However, farmers proposed a set of solutions to minimize the effect of these problems. Rearing of scavenging chickens fulfils the multi-functional need of the society. This system has special features because it can sustain in its own without the need for modern commercial chicken farming facilities. However, farmers also reported the drawbacks of rearing of scavenging chickens and these mainly include uproot of garden crops and tiresomeness of the night watching. Selection of chickens was mainly depending on physically observed traits like body size and plumage colour. The initial foundation flock was mainly obtained from the local market. The ideal place for scavenging chickens production is the one that has intermediate weather condition and has some trees that can be used as shade; however, it was substantiated that it has to be free from bush and shrubs, weeds and wet lands. Therefore, these pieces of knowledge embedded among smallholder farmers need to be well documented and synthesized to design an appropriate type of technology packages that can be communicated back to farmers to improve productivity of the scavenging chickens.

Farmers' perceptions on trypanosomosis and trypanotolerance character of the taurine Sheko.

In the humid and subhumid tropics, trypanosomosis is an economically important zoonotic protozoan disease of the commonly kept farm animal species and their wild relatives. For example, more than 20% of the humid western and southwestern Ethiopia, which is home to more than 14 million heads of cattle, is under varying levels of trypanosomosis risk. Our study was, therefore, initiated to document farmers' perception on trypanosomosis and Sheko's trypanotolerance character. Our findings showed that trypanosomosis was the most frequently reported cattle disease in the Bench Maji Zone. Accordingly, 76.7% of the farmers reported the epidemiological importance of trypanosomosis, and they also noted that trypanosomosis on average accounted for 63.0% of annualized cattle death. The reported signs of trypanosomosis and trypanotolerance indicators were consistent with literature reports. Moreover, 66.7% of the farmers reported Sheko's trypanotolerance character. In the course of time, smallholder farmers have developed ethnoveterinary practices that are mainly used to prevent the landing of vector flies on the animal. Wet and warm seasons of the year, i.e., spring and, to some extent, the beginning of summer and autumn, were reported as peak periods of trypanosomosis risk. Therefore, this showed the need for incorporating farmers' knowledge in trypanosomosis control programs.

Breed and trait preferences of Sheko cattle keepers in southwestern Ethiopia.

Like their smallholder subsistence counterparts in developing countries, breed and trait preferences of Sheko cattle keepers have broad perspectives. Our study has documented breed and trait preferences of Sheko cattle keepers in southwestern Ethiopia--the natural breeding tract of Sheko cattle. Our results showed that due to their multifunctionality, cattle are the most preferred livestock species. Overall, farmers showed slightly more preference to local Zebus over Sheko breed. This is due to voracious feeding behavior of Sheko cattle, which make them less preferable in the face of worsening feed shortage, and due to aggressive temperament of Sheko cattle. This is despite Sheko's outperforming potential over local Zebus in their milk production, draft power, and hardiness. At trait level, overall milk production was consistently reported as the most preferred trait followed by fertility and traction. This trait preference rank has matched with the reported frequency count ranks for Sheko cattle use. However, breed preference rank has not matched with reported trait preference ranks because Sheko excels local Zebus in all the three most preferred traits, but it was ranked second. Therefore, to minimize these conflicting interests, breed management plans for Sheko cattle should target on strategies that help to solve feed shortage problem and to improve feeding practices, and on selection of less aggressive Sheko cattle. Therefore, these strategies should be considered in line with Sheko cattle conservation and genetic improvement programs.