Application of Biometric Traits for Predicting Weaning Weight of Dorper Sheep using Path Analysis

Abstract

The current study was conducted to examine the relationship between weaning weight and biometric traits viz; heart girth (HG), rump height (RH), body length (BL), withers height (WH) and sternum height (SH) and, also to determine direct and indirect influence of biometric traits on weaning weight (WW) of Dorper sheep. Dorper sheep lambs (females=23, males=16) were used. Pearson’s correlation and path analysis were used for data analysis. Female correlation results indicated that WW had a positive highly significant correlation with HG (r=0.66), BL (r=0.66) and RH (r=0.55), and positively statistical correlation with WH (r=0.45) at P<0.05 whereas in males, results demonstrated that WW had a negative highly significant correlation with HG (r=-0.51) at P<0.05. Path analysis results on females showed that BL (0.34) had the greatest direct effect on WW while HG (0.31) had the highest indirect contribution on WW, males’ results indicated that HG (0.97) had the highest direct contribution on WW while WH (0.69) had the greatest indirect effect on WW. Current study information will assist rural farmer who lack weighing scales to predict weight of their animals for various reasons such as for breeding and marketing purposes and again study outcome will help sheep breeders to select direct and indirect traits influencing weaning weight for improvement.