Description of body conformation of Nigerian Indigenous Turkeys using exploratory factor analysis

Abstract

Body dimensions are used to characterise livestock species. Factor analysis is a multivariate technique for examining the interrelationship among a set of variables that are correlated. Factor analysis was used to describe body conformation of Nigerian indigenous turkeys in this study. The biometric traits of Nigerian indigenous turkeys were measured at 20^th week of age and subjected to PROC FACTOR of SAS using varimax criterion of orthogonal rotation method. The highest Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.94 was observed between wing length and wing span. Three factors accounted for 87.41% of the total variance. The first factor accounted for 50.23% of the total variance, the second factor accounted for 24.39% while the third factor accounted for 12.79% of the total variance. The communality ranged from 0.77 in body weight to 0.98 in breast girth. All the biometric traits studied were very effective in explaining body conformation in Nigerian indigenous turkeys. Three factors explained all the biometric traits of Nigerian indigenous turkeys. The first factor explained body weight, body length, shank length, thigh length and keel length. The second factor explained wing parts while the third factor explained only the breast girth. It can therefore be concluded that the three factors obtained in this study described body conformation of Nigerian indigenous turkeys.

Keywords: Turkey; Body dimension; Communality; Unique factor