Peste des petit ruminants (PPR), a viral disease of sheep and goats, invaded Kenya through Turkana district in 2006. Kenya had remained uninfected with PPR despite bordering countries (Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia) that were reported endemic with the disease. This study evaluated the small ruminants pastoral management practices of Turkana pastoral herders as part of a participatory risk assessment looking at the social cultural and small stock husbandry activities that may facilitate exposure of sheep and goats to possible Peste des petit ruminants (PPR) infective herds or animals. The social cultural and small stock husbandry activities were represented by 62 variables in Peste des petit ruminants risk assessment questionnaire which were analyzed using factor analysis. The risk assessment questionnaire was developed as a Likert scale based on summated rating scale format. The risk assessment questionnaire was applied to 142 villages (Adakars) across six administrative divisions in north and west of Turkana District. Factor analysis extracted 7 factors that accounted for 45.3% of the variance in the reworked 49 variables analyzed. These extracted factors were thus taken as the salient factors that explained small ruminant pastoral management practices of Turkana pastoral herders as follows: 1  indiscriminate mixing of vulnerable small stock groups with high risk groups within herds; 2  introduction of new animals into the herds; 3  share watering sources leading concentration of vulnerable young stock in one point; 4  foreign livestock from across international borders grazing in local pastures;  5 nomadism and transhumance; 6  local culture of borrowing and loaning of livestock; 7 sick dams left to nurse their young kids and lambs. These seven management factors were evaluated in a regression analysis of PPR as predictors of PPR outbreak in last one and two years. The results are presented in a subsequent paper.