CLASSIFICATION OF DONKEY STRAINS IN NORTHWESTERN NIGERIA THROUGH EUCLIDEAN DISTANCE MEASUREMENTS

Abstract

Proper knowledge of variations and diversities between, among and within the populations of animals helps in classifying animals into their various genetic groups, which helps in identification and conservation of important alleles. A total of seven hundred (700) donkeys consisting of (280) adult, (210) young and (210) weaner donkeys were sampled from Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara States of Nigeria using a random sampling techniques. Biometric traits measured among sampled donkeys were body weight, head length, head width, ear length, neck length, neck circumference, shoulder width, height at withers, heart girth, body length and tail length. Data obtained were subjected to statistical analysis to determine the genetic distance estimate across the strains. The classification of Black (Duni), White (Fari), Brown (Idabari), Red (Auraki) and Brown-white (Idabari-fari) donkeys (by using Euclidean as the distance measurement, Single Linkage, Average Linkage, and Complete Linkage were applied, and the obtained results were compared. The simple discriminant analysis procedure was used to classify the strains using the R 2.13.0 (R Development Core Team) package. Homogeneous genetic distance was observed for head width (16, 16) and shoulder width (21, 21) in male red donkeys. Female donkeys showed similar and  losed genetic distances for ear length in red (26, 21), black (21, 26) and brown (26, 21) and male Red (26,22), Black (22, 25), White (26, 22) and Brown (22, 25) across the strains. Heart girth, body length and height at wither showed high level of genetic variability among the strains. Heaviest body weight was recorded in male red (141.90kg) donkey strain with a distance of 6.75cm compared to other strains of donkeys. Further classification of donkeys into various genetic groups should employ heart girth, body length and height at wither.