Effect of agro-ecology and sex on adaptability of West African dwarf goats in the humid tropics

Abstract

To examine morphometric adaptability status of WAD goats, a survey of 227 male and female individuals over two ecological areas namely Osun and Ekiti was conducted in the humid tropics between May 2015 and June 2017. Five morphometric measurements recorded were Body weight (BWT), Heart girth (HGH), Diagonal trunk length (DTL), Height at withers (HWT), Height at the Rump (HRP) and seven derived morpho-structural index traits. Experimental design was Randomized complete block with factorial treatment design. Data collected on animals were analyzed using the General Linear Model Procedure and Tukey HSD test at p<0.05. Between ecological environments, TLI, BLI and DTL were significantly higher (P<0.05) in Osun goats, while WGI, HRP, BDI and HWT with least differences (0.18 to 0.70) evinced the most stable traits to ecological areas. High CV of 56.96 - 34.03 on BLI, BWT and WHI revealed a highly unselected population. Between sex, males demonstrated superior genetic ability for WHI, HGH and BWT at 30.45, 21.34 and 14.52%, while the females expressed greater genetic effects through WGI, BLI and TLI at 46.50, 12.82 and 5.70% expression. Ekiti goats demonstrated superiority in OBI (1.34) while males had higher OBI (99.03) than females (97.38). Interaction of sex by ecological area on DTL, TLI, OBI, BDI, BBI, LLI and BLI revealed that sexes elicit varying levels of adaptability.

Keywords: Adaptability, Analysis of variance, Morphometric measurements, Ecological area, goat breeding and improvement