Deliberate efforts have been made by the government of Uganda to commercialize agriculture through market and trade liberalisation. However, marketed livestock offtake has remained low contributing to the existing per capita meat deficit. A survey was conducted by way of personal interviews with 180 respondents in selected central and western pastoral districts of Uganda. The study was initiated with the overall purpose of assessing the factors that influence cattle keepers‘ participation in commercialization of livestock production in the pastoral communities and to establish the factors affecting cattle keepers‘ decision to sell cattle. Descriptive statistical analysis and Tobit model were used to answer the study objectives. The average household size was 10 members and 8 years of formal education an equivalent of secondary school was the household heads‘ average level of education. The average household grazing land owned was 157 hectares with some households owning as small as 2.3 hectares due to increasing land pressure and few others owned as large as 301 hectares. Results revealed that the majority of the cattle keepers (51%) kept indigenous breeds mostly Ankole cattle with an average herd size of 57 heads of cattle followed by cross breed keepers (45%) with an average of 35 heads of cattle and the exotic breed cattle keepers who consisted of a dismal 1% with an average of 3 heads of exotic cattle. The herds were dominated by female cows constituting 50.4 %, heifers (24.3%), calves (15.8%), and mature bulls (1.5%)