BODY MORPHOLOGY AND CHEVON YIELD OF INDIGENOUS BREEDS OF GOATS (BUCKS) IN NIGERIA

Abstract

A total of eighteen yearling bucks containing six each of Sahel Bucks-SB, West African Dwarf Bucks-WAD bucks and Red Sokoto Bucks-RSB averagely weighing 9.9±0.3kg were used to evaluate body morphology and its implication on meat yield and other quality parameters of chevon from indigenous goat breeds in Nigeria. Prior to the start of the study, their relative ages were determined using incisors appearance. They were managed on iso calorie diets for 210 days in an experiment laid out in a Complete Randomized Design, (CRD). Body morphology, primal cuts and chevon yield according to the breeds were determined.   Results showed that height varied significantly (P<0.05) and  SB and RS bucks,  elicited  closed values of Height at Withers (HW) of (53.33cm) and (52.33cm), respectively which were significantly higher than the37.33 cm for WAD bucks. On the other hand, Chest Width (CW) of 27.09 cm and Heart Girth (HG) of 59.03 cm of WAD bucks were significantly higher than 21.00 and 50.04 and 23.4 and 52.6 cm in SB and RSB, respectively. Although both wholesale cuts for hind and fore legs were significantly (P<0.05) higher in Sahel and RS bucks than WAD bucks, they were enough to predict higher meat yield over WAD bucks.  The study concluded that there was an inverse relationship in terms of meat determining characteristics and height in goat breeds. WAD bucks reportedly yielded more chevon while tallness characteristics were higher in both RS and Sahel bucks.