Morphological structure and body indices for Bunaji and Friesian-Bunaji crosses

Abstract

The objective of this study was to provide information on the morphological structure and body indices of Bunaji cattle and their crosses. Body weight and eight (8) morphological traits of 72 Bunaji and 60 Friesian x Bunaji cows were measured. The morphological parameters were used to calculate nine body indices. The analyzed morphological traits showed that the crossbred cows were heavier with larger morphological structure than the pure breed; however, both animals slightly slope forward although not very unbalanced. The correlation coefficients amongst the morphological traits in Bunaji were all positive and significant (P< 0.05 – 0.01) except for correlation of Rump Width (RW) with Body Depth (BD: r = 0.352) and Body Length (BL: r =0.210). However, the correlation coefficients amongst the morphological traits in the crosses were generally weak. The strongest correlation was observed between BW and HG (0.926) and between BW and RW (r = 0.946) in Bunaji and their crosses, respectively. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the morphometric traits extracted one component with total variance of 67.67% in Bunaji and two components with total variance of 74.30% in the crosses. The first factor in each case had higher loadings for variables relating to body size, while the second PC in the crosses had high association with traits that reflect the body shape of the animal. The HG and RW were the single most informative morphological traits for estimation of BW in Bunaji and Friesian x Bunaji, respectively. In Conclusion, the Bunaji cattle are medium size animals, although they are used for both meat and milk production (multipurpose) there morphology showed some resemblance to milk type animal, thus suggesting a possible genetic improvement of these animals for dairy purpose.