PRE-AND POST-WEANING PHENOTYPIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOME N'DAMA CATTLE UNEAR MEASUREMENTS IN THE TROPICS

Abstract

Data collected on 1438 male and 1492 female pure bred N'Dama calves calved between 1948 and 1961 at Fashola Stock farm were used to study the relationship between five N'Dama cattle linear measurements at pre and post Weaning ages. The measurements were Head to Shoulder (HDS); Shoulder to tail drop (STD); Height at withers (HTW); Heart girth (HGT) and Body length (BLT). All measurements had positive values which ranged from 0.2 - 91 except HTW and HDS which had a negative value (-02) in males at yearling age. There was a predominance of positive and highly significant relationship (P<0.01) between height measurement (HTW) and circumference measurement (HGT) which ranged from .04 - .76 with pre weaning measurements having higher values (.69 - .76) in both sexes. High and positive correlation values were also observed between length measurements (HDS, STD and BLT) which therefore shows that only one of such measurements is sufficient for length measurement Generally measurements taken at pre weaning had higher correlation values than those taken at post weaning.