LIVE WEIGHT, TESTICULAR MORPHOLOGY AND HISTOLOGY OF DOMESTIC PIGEONS (COLUMBIA LIVIA DOMESTICA) IN A SEMI -ARID ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Thirty mature male pigeons of similar age were bought from households around Maiduguri and quarantined for two weeks. The birds were weighed with a digital weighing balance to obtain their live weights after which they were slaughtered. The paired testes were excised for morphological measurements. Testes weights, length and width were measured. The volume of the testes was obtained using the Archimedes principle. Testes were randomly taken from ten birds and used for histological study. The results obtained reveal that pigeons had mean live weight of 295±12.13g. Average paired testicular weight was 0.79±0.15g while the mean right and left testicular weights were 0.38±0.08g and 0.40±0.08g respectively. The result obtained shows that there was moderate correlation between live weights and all the testicular parameters measured. It was concluded that pigeons in the semi-arid region of Nigeria show testicular features that are similar to those already reported in literature and hence can be used for any breeding programme to enhance pigeon
productivity in the region.