Current Knowledge on the Lagune Cattle Breed in Benin: A State of the Art Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General comments
This paper synthetizes the current state of knowledge on Lagune cattle breed in Benin one of African dwarf shorthorn cattle Africa. Regarding the current status of many West African taurine breeds, such a study is very important in improving knowledge in the perspective of their conservation and sustainable use. I highly appreciated the effort made by the authors in compilation and summarizing available information. Globally the manuscript is well written and easy to read.
Below I made some comments and observations that can help improve the quality of the manuscript.
Specific comments
In line 11 the authors state that they used information from diverse sources including “research reports” while in line 68 they talk about “project report”. Which type of reports were used? There is difference between reports from research project and reports from development projects or NGOs… This need to be highlighted.
Line 80-82: Add references please
L99: “Savalou”: is it a location name? If it is, you must add a location name in the South.
Line 105: add “s” to breeder
Line 107: What are the 4 farming types in the Valley reported by these authors?
It would have been great to put a table summarizing reproduction and production performances reported in the literature.
References
Some errors occured. Please check carefully and make things consistent. See e.g:
Line 366-367: Ref.3: add the number of pages
Line 409-410: Ref. 22: doi is missing
Line 416-417: Ref.25 : ad the number of pages
Line 505: Ref.62: doi…
Line 535: Ref.74: Number of pages
Author Response
Response to reviewers’ comments
The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their careful and thorough reviews of this manuscript. Their thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions have helped to improve the quality of this paper. Please find below our response to each reviewer’s comment and suggestion.
Reviewer 1
General comments
This paper synthetizes the current state of knowledge on Lagune cattle breed in Benin one of African dwarf shorthorn cattle Africa. Regarding the current status of many West African taurine breeds, such a study is very important in improving knowledge in the perspective of their conservation and sustainable use. I highly appreciated the effort made by the authors in compilation and summarizing available information. Globally the manuscript is well written and easy to read. Below I made some comments and observations that can help improve the quality of the manuscript.
Response: many thanks for these relevant comments. Your suggestions have been taken into account in the revised manuscript.
Specific comments
Comment: In line 11 the authors state that they used information from diverse sources including “research reports” while in line 68 they talk about “project report”. Which type of reports were used ? There is difference between reports from research project and reports from development projects or NGOs… This need to be highlighted.
Response: It has been corrected (Line 68).
Comment : Line 80-82: Add references please
Response: References have been added (Line 86).
Comment : line L99: “Savalou”: is it a location name? If it is, you must add a location name in the South.
Response: many thanks for these relevant comments. It has been corrected (Line 103).
Comment : Line 105: add “s” to breeder
Response: It has been corrected (Line 109).
Comment : Line 107: What are the 4 farming types in the Valley reported by these authors?
Response: The four types of Lagune cattle farms identified in the Oueme Valley and reported by these authors are:
The type1 gathered the cattle farms named fishermen Toffin and that are relatively young (43.45 ± 8.12 years). The herd size is about 33.5 ± 12.5 heads. They are sedentary farmers and kept their animals in free-roaming system on the common land in the Sô-Ava location. The type2 gathered the cattle sedendary farms of Goun socio-cultural group of the location of Adjohoun, Bonou, Dangbo and Missérété, relatively older (45.05 ± 13 years). They had a small herd size (5 ± 1 head) mainly established by purchase. The animals of Lagune cattle breed were kept in tethering system. The type 3 was constituted of farmers from the Fulani ethnic group, relatively older (43.8 ± 6.2 years) and had the greatest cattle herds (56.3 ± 7.29 head). The breed composition of herds was dominated by the Borgou cattle breed (61.2 %) and crossbreed cattle lagune*Borgou (38.8 %). They practiced a semi-sedentary system. The type 4 gathered the cattle farmers of ethnic group Fulani (50 %) and Fon (50 %) whose average age was (44.00 ± 2.3 years) from the governmental Farm of Samiondji. The animals were raised on improved pasture and received a feed supplement after grazing in the dry season.
Comment : It would have been great to put a table summarizing reproduction and production performances reported in the literature.
Response: we thank the reviewer for his pertinent suggestion.
Comment : References : Some errors occured. Please check carefully and make things consistent. See e.g:
Line 366-367 : Ref.2: add the number of pages
Line 409-410: Ref. 22: doi is missing
Line 416-417: Ref.25 : ad the number of pages
Line 505: Ref.62: doi…
Line 535: Ref.74: Number of pages
Response: these errors have been corrected.
The doi of the Ref. 22 has not been found (Line 421-422).
The doi of the Ref. 62 has not been found (Line 517-518).
Reviewer 2
General comment: Congratulations to the authors for such deep review. The work is well organized and presented. The only section that needs to be improved is the methodology paragraph. I find it mandatory to specificy more details about the strategy of searching. I mean, if filters were applied when searching referring documents, when the search was performed, how many articles were finally selected for review and why, etc.
Response: many thanks for these relevant comments. The methodology paragraph has been improved (Line 69-72).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Congratulations to the authors for such deep review.
The work is well organized and presented. The only section that needs to be improved is the methodology paragraph. I find it mandatory to specificy more details about the strategy of searching. I mean, if filters were applied when searching referring documents, when the search was performed, how many articles were finally selected for review and why, etc.
Author Response
Response to reviewers’ comments
The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their careful and thorough reviews of this manuscript. Their thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions have helped to improve the quality of this paper. Please find below our response to each reviewer’s comment and suggestion.
Reviewer 2
General comment: Congratulations to the authors for such deep review. The work is well organized and presented. The only section that needs to be improved is the methodology paragraph. I find it mandatory to specificy more details about the strategy of searching. I mean, if filters were applied when searching referring documents, when the search was performed, how many articles were finally selected for review and why, etc.
Response: many thanks for these relevant comments. The methodology paragraph has been improved (Line 69-72).
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
