Morphometric characterization of west African Dwarf Sheep in Remo zone of Ogun State

Abstract

The study attempted application of morphometric parameters in the assessment of phenotypic variation among West African Dwarf sheep in Three (3) Local Government Area (LGA) of Remo province in Ogun State using phenotypic traits namely, Horn Length (HL), Head Width (HW), Head Length (HDL), Shoulder Width (SW), `Foreleg Length (FL), Hearth Girth (HG), Rump Length (RL), Pauch Girth (PG), Wither Heart (WH), Tail Length (TL), Ear Length (EL), Thorax Depth (TD) and Body Length (BL). Data were collected from 150 sheep comprising of male and female animals. Analysis was done using SPSS (2001) statistical package to obtain the means, standard deviations, standard error and coefficient of variation from the data collected which was subsequently used for classification. The result showed no significant different (P < 0.05) for all the phenotypic traits measured across all the LGA except EL, H^DL and HG that were significantly different (p < 0.05) in Ikenne and Sagamu LGA. The mean for EL, H^DL and HG ranged between 9.88 cm in Ikenne LGA and 10.64 cm in Remo LGA, from 23.28 cm in Ikenne LGA to 24.62 cm in Remo LGA and from 26.88 cm in Ikenne LGA to 29.00 cm in Sagamu LGA respectively showing the variation in the population studied.

Keywords: Morphometric parameters, Ogun State, Remo, West African Dwarf Sheep