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
