A Study on Body Measurement and Weight of Butana Cows

Abstract

There is often a great need for livestock herdsmen to know how much their animals weigh. For many reasons that may include, management decision such as how much to feed, when to breed, determination of dosages of various medications and vaccines and most important is when to market, for slaughter. Now it is the most used or easiest as the local farmers the most scientifically in-accurate method of weight determination is visual appraisal. Visual determination of the weight of animals is often faced by errors like using the same estimate for more than one breed of a particular species. The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy of prediction of body weight from some body measurements such as the body lengths (BL), height at withers (HW) and heart girth (HG) for Butana cows. These measurements were obtained from Butana cows (n=34). In the current study three mathematical models, linear, quadratic and cubic were used to estimate the relationship between body weight and body measurements. Cubic model provides the best prediction of these relationships. A significant (P<0.01) correlation was obtained between height at withers and body weight (r=0.757). Also the regression of body weight on height at withers had the highest coefficient of determination (r2 = 0.574) this study suggests that this variable would provide a good estimate for predicting live body weight rather than with the other body measurements for Butana cows. Also the multiple regression of body weight on height at wither and heart girth had high coefficient of determination (r2 = 0.734). However this study suggests that body measurements would provide a good estimate for predicting live body weight in Butana cows with more concentration on the H.W