Phenotypic Characterization of Cattle Based on Coat Colour in Obudu Grass Plateau, South-South Nigeria: A Discriminant Approach

Abstract

A total of 311 cattle comprised 145 mixed coat coloured, 100 white coat coloured and 66 brown coat coloured were used to investigate the phenotypic characterization of cattle based on coat colour using multivariate discriminant analysis approach. A total of nineteen morphological traits where measured. Theses includes: body weight (BW), body length (BL), ear length (EL), horn length (HNL), head length (HDL), head width (HDW), rump length (RL), rump width (RW), horn circumference (HNC), heart girth (HG), cannon circumference (CC), cannon length (LC), scrotal circumference (SC), foreleg length (FLT), hind leg length (HLT), rump wide (RW), rump length (RL), dewlap wide (DWW) and number of teat (NTT) were collected on each animal. The data was analyzed by SPSS and the mean was separated using Duncan multiple test. The multivariate analysis revealed that the phenotypic trait measured of brown coat coloured cattle were significantly larger (P<0.05) than white and mixed coat coloured with the exception of HNL in white. However, the stepwise discriminant analysis revealed that HNC, CL, UDC and HDW were more discriminating in separating the three coat colour populations. The Mahalanobis distance of the morphological traits between brown and mixed coat coloured cattle was the largest (14.16) while the least genetic distance was observed between white and brown coat coloured cattle (7.43). The eigenvalues and Wilk’s lambda test revealed the function 1 with percent (%) variance of 67.8 and Wilk’s lambda of 0.166 showed a good function to discriminant and grouping. The study concluded that the high value of genetic distance (D²) between brown and mixed coat colours indicates that if mated, it will give rise to hybrid vigour.

Keywords: Cattle, Coat Colour, Discriminant, Phenotypic