Testicular Morphometric Measurements and Their Relationship with Heart Girth in Red Mbororo Bulls

Abstract

Records of heart girth (HGT) and testicular morphometric measurements (testicular weight, tunica albuginea weight, caput weight, corpus weight, cauda weight, epididymal weight and ductus deferens weight) (TMM) were obtained in dry and wet seasons from twenty (20) matured Red M “Bororo” bulls to determine the relationship between HGT and TMM and, to check the effect of season on the TMM. The results showed that correlation between HGT and Testicular weight was highly significant (p<0.01) while, correlations between HGT and other TMM were significant (p<0.05). Among all TMM, testicular weight was the best predicted by HGT (R2 = 0.608). Seasonal variation affected TMM with higher measurements obtained in the wet season. Season could therefore be assumed to be a source of variation of fertility in bulls while, HGT could be assumed to be a good indicator of sperm production.

Key words: Testicular, measurements, heart girth, bull