Age and sex dimorphism of the ratio between body measurements to live weights in Red Sokoto, Sahel and West African Dwarf goats

A. J. Shoyombo, G. N. Akpa, H. Yakubu, J. Izebere and S. O. Olawoye

Net Journal of Agricultural Science
Published: July 31 2015
Volume 3, Issue 3
Pages 81-85

Abstract

The study was carried out in Borno, Sokoto and Ogun States. These states were selected because those locations are having close to pure breeds of the goats. Animals used for this study were sampled in the abattoir of Borno, Sokoto and Ogun States when brought for slaughtering either by the owner or by the slaughter man. 900 goats comprising of three hundred Sahel goats from Borno State, three hundred Red Sokoto goats from Sokoto State and three hundred West African Dwarf goats from Ogun State were used for the study made up of fifty males and fifty females distributed in the following age groups <1, 1-2 and 2-3 years. These were evaluated for morphometric characteristics. The pairs of permanent incisors in the dentition of the goat were used to determine age. The following metric characters were measured on each animal: body weight (BW), age, horn length (HL), ear length (EL), shoulder width (SW), neck circumference (NC), body length (BL), withers height (WH), heart girth (HG), pouch girth (PG) and tail Length (TL) along with body weight. Obtained measures were compared to body weight as ratio of measures to body weight and resulting ratio was subjected to analysis of variance using age and sex as classification variables with the SAS software. It was observed that PG had the highest ratio of 4.82, 3.68 and 3.58 respectively for the three breeds of goat. HL showed the least ratio of 0.50, 0.53 and 0.36 for Red Sokoto, Sahel and WAD goats. It follows that higher ratio indicates higher contribution of a given morphometric part to liveweight relative to that of other parts, so that selection could be made on the basis of this ratio. In conclusion, PG in this study consistently indicate high ratio and should be recommended for further studies as a selection factor in breeding and production of goats.

Keywords: Sexual dimorphism, body parts ratio, age, sex.

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