Body weight had highest correlation coefficient with heart girth around the chest under the same farmers feeding conditions for Arsi Bale sheep

Abstract

The study was conducted in Adami Tulu Jido Kombolcha and Bora districts from east Shoa zone as well as Kofele and Asasa from west Arsi zone of Oromia regional state. The objective of this study was to determine the best regression model for live weight estimation to be used by farmers without the use of weighing scale for indigenous sheep breed found in East Shoa and West Arsi zone of Oromia Regional State. Purposive and simple random sampling was employed to select the study kebeles and all the sheep for body weight and linear body measurements. Thus body weight and linear body measurements were assessed from 600 heads of sheep. Body weight of the rams and ewes varied across the age groups. Natural pasture, crop residues, crop aftermath local brewery wastes too are paramount importance. The regression analysis to predict body weight from linear measurements indicated body weight is infl uenced by morphometrical measurements which included body length, chest girth and the other leaner measurements. The body weight had highest correlation coeffi cient with heart girth (CG) around the chest (r > 0.80) compared with other body measurements. The stepwise regression models indicated that heart girth singly accounted highest variation (more than 90%) in body weight for all animals.

Regression model analysis for prediction of body weight from body measurements in female Batur sheep of Banjarnegara District, Indonesia

“…Testing with the automatic linear model with the best subsets method also showed that CG is in a more fit rank with the lowest information criterion (AICC) value (344.527) compared to BL (436.626) and WH (442.307). These results in line with the study on Wonosobo sheep (Haryanti et al 2015), Arsi Bale sheep (Worku 2019), Kilakarsal sheep (Ravimurugan et al 2013), blackhead Somali sheep (Feyissa et al 2018), Sudanese Shogur sheep (Musa et al 2012), Uda sheep (Yakubu 2012), Washera sheep, Farta sheep (Mekuriaw et al 2013), indigenous Ethiopia sheep (Tesfay et al 2017), Maefur goat (Berhe 2017) that CG is the most suitable body trait for reflecting and predicting body weight.…”

“…In the single predictor, the correlation between BW and CG is the highest (0.836) compared to BL and WH. The highest correlation between BW and CG compared BL and WH were expressed on Cornigliese sheep (Sabbioni et al 2020), blackhead Somali sheep (Feyissa et al 2018), Mengali sheep (Eyduran et al 2017), Kilakarsal sheep (Ravimurugan et al 2013), Uda sheep (Yakubu 2012), Arsi Bale sheep (Worku 2019), male Afar goat (Tekle 2014), female Etawah Grade goat (Dakhlan et al 2020) and Nguni cattle (Tyasi et al 2020). The CG becomes the best predictor for BW on the livestock can be possible due to the CG development was aligned with the ribs, muscles, and fats development, where an increase in the proportion of carcass fat and rib-eye weight were related to the growth and fat accumulation (Dakhlan et al 2020).…”