Biometrical Relationship between Body Weight and Body Measurements of Black Bengal Goat (BBG)

Aims: To develop regression equations for estimation of live weight from the external morphological measurements.

Study Design: CRD with non-orthogonal hierarchy.

Place and Duration of Study: This study was carried out at 3 rural village communities of Bhaluka Upazila in Mymensingh district of Bangladesh from 2009 to 2013.

Methodology: All animals were ear-tagged and maintained under semi-intensive management system with scheduled vaccination and de-worming. Data were collected from a baseline survey along with 3 progressive generations produced from the community foundation stocks. Body length, chest girth, wither height, hip height and body weights were measured in a same day and recorded individually from birth up to 15 month age. Body weights were measured in kilogram by a hanging spring balance and other morphological parameters were measured in centimeter by a measuring tape. The data were analyzed by "SPSS 17.0" statistical program.

Results: A total of seven regression models were adopted and analysis of variance showed that all models were fitted significantly (p<0.001). The correlation coefficient was higher when multiple body measurements were included in the model. The study also revealed that when chest girth as a single body measurement was included in the model gave the highest correlation coefficient (R=0.92). For including multiple measurements, body length and chest girth are the best external body measures which exposed same correlation coefficient (R2=0.92) when included more than these two body measures in the model. The differences between actual body weight and body weight predicted from regression equation for different ages were less than 1% (p>0.05) and correlation coefficient between weights was 0.92 (p<0.01).

Conclusion: There are strong correlations among morphometric body measurements. Thus, body weight can be estimated from a single or multiple body measurements by regression equation. Chest girth is the best single predictor for estimating live body weight with high accuracy.