The term 'Sanga' is an Ethiopian word meaning 'bull' and it relates to the origin and centre of dispersal of this group of cattle breeds. It is in this part of East and Northeast Africa where sanga cattle first evolved as a result of the interbreeding of the Longhorn-, Shorthorn- and zebu type cattle, commencing about 3000 to 4000 years ago, a process that has continued up to the present time (Payne and Wilson, 1999). The sanga show a mixture of features from the zebu (humps and dewlap) and Humpless cattle (long horns and no humps). Another theory based on archaeological findings (Muzzolini, 2000) maintains that African humped zebu evolved in central Sahara in the first millennium BC, which possibly provided the foundation for crossing with the Humpless Longhorn cattle to produce the sanga in the Sahara, from where it gradually spread with migrating Nilo-Hamitic and Hamitic peoples across central and southern Africa. However, recent molecular genetics evidence (Hanotte et al., 2002) suggests that genetics introgression of the Bos indicus (zebu) spread from the Horn of Africa to the west of the continent and the zebu genes might have dispersed rapidly into the indegenous Africa populations. In any case, the sanga breeds of cattle dominated the cattle population in the region until 1887, when Italian priests imported a shipload of Italian cattle and introduced the cattle plague (Rinderpest). This disease annihilated most of the existing cattle populations, especially the Sanga, and led to the first great Famine in East Africa. After the epidemic, zebu cattle were continually introduced along the coastline and crossbreeding with Sanga remnants resulted in several zebu-Sanga and Sanga-zebu populations (Felius, 1995). The present distribution of the sanga cattle extends from Eritrea, through Ethiopia, southern Sudan and the Great Lakes region of East Africa to southern Africa where they are the traditional cattle in all countries south of the Zambezi. Since the cattle plague, eastern Africa has been dominated by the short-horned zebu. While there are hardly any breed improvement programmes for the sanga of eastern Africa, the majority in southern Africa have well-organised programmes and most have breed societies. Selective breeding of the Mashona, Tuli, and Africander resulted in local cattle more productive in beef productivity than exotic beef breeds. They have also provided the basis for the Commercial Composite breeds of South Africa, namely Drakensberger and Bonsmara (Payne and Wilson, 1999).
Breed Origin :
Sanga cattle were introduced into southern Africa when the Khoikhoi (Hottentots) first crossed the Zambezi river about 700AD with their sanga cattle. Several waves of the Bantu people with various strains of sanga cattle entered the region and settled. The Tswana people settled with their livestock in the Ngami region of Botswana early in the 19th century and their cattle eventually displaced all the original Ngami cattle. Despite the apparent differences between the western (Ngamiland) and eastern (Batawana) subgroups of cattle, all the sanga cattle in Botswana are known to belong to Tswana breed. Tribal migration and cattle raids continued until recently; consequently the different breeds of sanga today are related (Felius, 1995; Rege and Tawah, 1999).
Main Location:
Botswana is the epicentre of distribution of the Setswana cattle. Following the emergence of commercial ranching as a viable livestock industry in Botswana in recent decades, the Tswana breed has been developed as the most important beef breed, and in 1983 it constituted 75% of the national herd.
Habitat:
Special
Characteristic:
The improved Tswana are large in body size, maintain the long horns of the Ngami predecessors, have cervico-thoracic hump that varies in size; coat colour varies between red, red pied, black or black pied. Tswana cattle are tolerant to heavy tick challenge, and may have some level of resistance to the endemic heartwater. A national breed improvement program exists (Felius, 1995).
