The major provision of affordable protein and household cash income in a developing country comes from poultry. In Ethiopia, chicken production is providing a valuable source of food and cash income for most of rural and urban households. Despite of this importance, a set of factors such as low productive chicken breeds, low adaptive ability of high productive chicken, disease, and other breeding and management practices are limits the productivity of chicken by contributing to low genetic potential. By considering these problems, the present paper aims to review challenges of poultry genetics and breeding improvement in Ethiopia. In this paper, the major challenges of poultry genetics and breeding improvement are reviewed and discussed. Among these challenges, poultry genotypes (low productive indigenous and low adaptive ability of high productive chicken breeds), selection problem (either for production or breeding), breeding and management practices (uncontrolled breeding system, disease, low quality feed and poor awareness) and absence of proper crossbreeding are the major focus. Generally, there is no guideline for genetic improvement to be implemented for appropriate selection, crossbreeding and breeding program. Therefore, emphasis should be given to chicken genetic and breed improvement through selective breeding and crossbreeding to increase the low performance of indigenous and low adaptation ability of high productive chicken breeds.

Keywords: Breeding; Challenges; Genetics; Improvement; Performance; Poultry; Selection