CHARACTERIZATION OF DONKEYS IN NORTH WEST NIGERIA USING COAT COLOUR AND HAIR TYPES

Abstract

One hundred donkeys were sampled from each of Sokoto, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Zamfara and Kebbi State to make a total of 700 sample size for characterization of domestic donkeys in North- West Nigeria using coat colour and hair types among Red (Auraki), Black (Duni), White (Fari) and Brown (Idabari) strains of donkeys. Coat colour and hair types of donkeys was tabulated using frequency procedure while their distribution was tested using Chi Square of SAS. Distances were used to construct a dendogram using the Unweighted Pairs Group Method Analysis implemented in R 2.13.0. Coat colours and hair types were significantly (P<0.01) distributed among donkeys in the studied population. The most prominent coat colour observable among donkeys in North West of Nigeria was Brown (86%) with confidence level between 85 and 87%. The most occurring hair type was short-smooth (75%) with confidence interval between 71 and 78%. The other variants of coat colours were short-rough (14%) and long-curly (11%). Two major clusters were formed. The first cluster showed close relationship between Red (Auraki) and Black (Duni) donkeys. The second cluster was further divided into two sub-groups with Brown (Idabari) as leader and White (Fari) as joiner. The dendogram indicated that the Idabari-Fari was more closely related with Idabari than with Fari and also indicated that Auraki and Duni are closer and similar for hair type but are distant from Idabari, Idabari-fari and Fari. Apart from coat colour, classification of donkeys on the basis of hair type should be developed using morphological, biochemical and molecular techniques.