Morphological Characterization of Indigenous Woyto Guji Goat Breed in Loma District , Southern Ethiopia

This study was conducted on 810 goats in three agro ecological zones (Highland, midland and lowland) of Loma district in southern Ethiopia were considered with sex and age groups factor to characterize morphologically Woyto Guji goat in their home tract and production system. The goat population in the study area was characterized by higher proportion of plain coat patterns with brown coat color, straight head profile, semi pendulous ear formation and long ear type. The horns were characterized by backward orientation with a straight shape. Body weight of the goats’ changes at increasing rate at 0PPI to 3PPI and gradual increase was observed at older ages. Sex, age, agro ecological zones, sex by age and age by agro ecologies interaction had a significant (p<0.05/p<0.01) effect on body weight and many of the linear body measurements. The mean BWT, BC, BL, HG, HW, CW, PW, RH, RL, EL and HL of females are 26.53±2.91kg, 3.01±0.45, 57.48±0.64cm, 70.20±0.21cm, 64.12±0.18cm, 13.74±0.07cm, 13.20±0.19cm, 66.04±0.52cm, 11.97±0.13cm, 13.74±0.16cm and 11.20±0.10cm respectively. The corresponding values for male counterpart were 27.16±0.70 kg, 3.31±0.01, 60.13±1.17cm, 74.98±0.33cm, 68.34±0.05cm, 14.48±0.41cm, 13.25±0.37cm, 68.37±0.50cm, 12.83±0.43cm, 14.02±0.020cm and 13.22±0.47cm respectively. The result indicated that phenotypic characterization, body weight and linear body measurement description could help as an input for efficient utilization, conservation and designing improvement strategy for this genetic resource in the community.


INTRODUCTION
its conservation [6].Body measurements in addition to Ethiopia is home for diverse indigenous goat do the conventional methods of weighing and grading populations, numbering 22.8 million heads [1] and 15 small ruminant [7].Body dimensions have been used to breeds of goat exist though the goat characterization is indicate breed, origin and relationship through the not exhaustive [2] that have traditionally been an integral medium of head measurements [8].part of the farming systems in all agro-climatic conditions.
The information available regarding Woyto-Guji goat It has been estimated that about 70% of the goat is more of on station based, not sufficient to describe the population is found in the lowlands and the rest 30% is breed and morphologically characterization was found in the highland agro ecologies [3,4].
undertaken before two decades.Indigenous livestock The broad genetic variability of African small breeds are considered, for diverse reasons, as treasured ruminant breeds enables them to survive under stressful genetic resources that tend to disappear as a result of new environmental conditions like high disease incidence, market demands, crossbreeding or breed replacement and poor nutrition and high temperature [5].Environmental mechanized agricultural operations.Therefore, with these stress also maintains a wide range of genotypes, each all scenarios and the current global animal genetic adapted to a specific set of circumstances.The goat resource mix up through inbreeding, interbreeding and characterization in various forms has not been environmental change it is important to characterize over exhaustively undertaken in Ethiopia.Morphological different agro-ecological zones.The objective of this characterization is one of the crucial means for describing study was to characterize morphologically the Woyto-Guji the goat breeds.It is essential to characterize a breed for goat breed in their home areas.
weight estimate describe the individual or population than

MATERIALS AND METHODS
and physical description as descriptive statistics [13].
The study was conducted in Loma district, located in ver.9.2 were employed to analyze quantitative data and Dawuro Zone at 6.59° -7.34° N latitude and 36.68°-37.52°ascertain the effect of sex, site (agro ecology) and age E longitudes with at altitudinal range between 501-3300 [14].Mean separation was undertaken when it was meters above sea level in Southern Nations, Nationalities significant to reveal the difference between means using and Peoples Region (SNNPR) [9].
Tukey-Karamers method The District was, selected based on its potential for goat production, diversified agro ecological zone which Yijkl = µ + Ai + Sj +Dk + (AS)ij+(AD)ik+(SD)jk+ eijk l encompasses lowland, midland and highland and its Model 1 varied production system.The total surface area of the district is 116,280ha; with the mean annual rainfall of 900-where: 1800mm, with bimodal and erratic distribution and Y = l observation on i production site, j sex class temperature ranges from 14°C to 30°C [10].and k age group; Data Collection: Before starting goat characterization, a A = Fixed effect of i Agro ecology (i= 1, 2, 3 where rapid field survey was conducted by a team of researchers 1=lowland, 2=midland and 3= Highland) to assess the distribution, population and composition of S = Fixed effect of j sex (j =1, 2 where 1 = Male, 2= and the goat in different agro ecology of the study areas. female); Three agro ecologies (lowland, midland and highland) D = Fixed effect of k dentition (k =1, 2,3,4,5 where were identified based on altitude and production system 1= 0PPI,2= 1PPI, 3= 2PPI, 4= 3PPI and 5=4PPI); of the district.Three peasant associations (Kebeles) were (AS) = Fixed effect of interaction between agro ecology considered in each agro-ecologies based on their goat and sex production potential.
the growth of the long bones of the body [19].In addition Quantitative Characteristics traits of the sexes could be attributed to sexual Effect of sex: The Effect of sex was either highly dimorphism.[20] Reported that most dimorphism significant (P < 0.001) or significant (P < 0.005) on body developed post-weaning because of faster mass gain by weight and all body measurements.Perusal of least square males during the age of 1-2 years.They also suggested means (Table 3) showed that body weight and all body that males might have a longer season of mass gain each measurements in male goats were consistently higher year throughout their lives, while females divert annual in magnitude than the corresponding values in females.
resources into reproduction, rather than body mass.The mean BWT, BCS, BL, HG, HW, CW, PW, RH, RL, EL and HL of females were 23.74±0.14  The pair wise comparison of least square means showed agreement with previous results [15,17,18].The sex that there were significant differences among all pairs in related differences might be partly a function of the sex all traits studied except in pelvic width, rumph weight, differential hormonal effect on growth.It was reported rumph length, ear length and horn length.
to that, the differentials obtained in the morphological Effect of agro-ecology: The effect of agro ecologies earlier reports where found that heart girth was best was either highly significant (P < 0.001) or significant parameter for estimating body weight due to high (P<0.005)for all traits, studied, except ear length and correlation estimates [21,[23][24][25].scrotal circumference.Perusal of least square means showed a consistently ascending trend in the Multiple Regression Analysis: Perusal of results revealed measurements from lowland to highland agro ecologies that heart girth (HG) has been selected across four age for BL, HG, HtW, CW, PW and RH.In other traits no such groups in female (1PPI, 2PPI, 3PPI and 4PPI), five age consistent trend was observed.The present finding reflected that there were wide variations among the three agro ecologies which influenced all the quantitative traits studied.The present results were in agreement with earlier study showed that the effects of agro ecologies was significantly affected on body measurements in indigenous goat breeds [18,21].

Effect of Sex X Age Groups Interaction:
The interaction between sex and age groups was either highly significant (P < 0.001) or significant (P < 0.005) on body weight and all body measurements except scrotal circumference which was not studied.The results (Table 3) showed that the magnitude of values of body weight and all other body measurements were consistently higher in males of different age groups than corresponding values for female of various age groups.The pairwise comparison of means showed variable trends in all the traits studied.The present findings were in agreement with earlier studies which reported significant influence of sex and age interaction on body measurements [22,23].Hence, this finding should be considered in improvement program to increase meat yield from goat via sex disintegrated improved management.
Effect of agro ecology by age group interaction: The interaction between agro ecologies and age groups was either highly significant (P < 0.001) or significant (P < 0.005) on body weight and all body measurements except horn length and scrotal circumference.These results indicated that effect of agro ecologies was different in different age groups and thus variation in the agro ecologies has a strong effect on quantitative traits.

Correlation Between Body Weight and Body
Measurements: Heart girth had the highest correlation with body weight at various ages and in both sexes compared with other parameters, except in females of zero dentition was not significant correlated.The high correlation between body weight and heart girth, observed in majority of age groups, in present study suggested that heart girth could be used to obtain more reliable prediction estimate of body weight for the population.The present results were in agreement with groups in male (0PPI, 1PPI, 2PPI, 3PPI and 4PPI) and pooled overall age groups in both sexes as the first regressor because of its high contribution in terms of R 2 values.
The regression equation for pooled overall age groups was estimated as Y= (-28.20)+ 0.74 X; (where X stands for HG), with R value of 0.68 for female and Y= (-2 39.12) + 0.88 X; (where X stands for HG), with R value 2 of 0.78 for male goat in the present study.This finding showed that an increase of one cm of HG resulted in an increase of 0.74 and 0.78 kg of live weight in female and male goats, respectively.The role of other body measurements' in predicting live body weight differed in different age groups across the two sexes vis-à-vis their order in these equations.Thus it seems that body measurements other than HG may not possibly be used in general prediction equations.However the parameter estimates in multiple linear regression models showed that subsequent inclusions of other body measurements together with heart girth (First variable in all equatuions) kept the R values improving although the change had a 2 pattern of diminishing marginal rate.This suggested that body weight could be more accurately predicted by combinations of two or more measurements than heart girth alone.The earlier reports have also shown improvement in R values with subsequent addition of 2 more linear measurements [6,27,28].Nevertheless, measurement of traits also has cost implications and it will be impractical to consider many traits under farmer's conditions.Under such conditions, the most practical prediction accuracy may be obtained through the use of heart girth alone.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Woyto Guji goats are the predominant breeds in the study areas with high preference by the producers.Woyto-Guji goats have shown inferior performance in body weight and other linear body measurements except ear length as compared to the previous study conducted before two decades on the same breeds of goat that might be because of environmental stress, feeding system, prevailing breeding practices, lack of grazing land and 05d a,b,c,d,e,f means on the same column with different superscripts, within the specified class variable, are significantly different (p<0.05);Ns = non-significant; **P< 0.05; *** P< 0.01; 0PPI = 0 Pair of Permanent Incisors, 1PPI =1 Pair of permanent Incisors; 2 PPI = 2Pairs of Permanent Incisors; 3PPI = 3 Pairs of Permanent Incisors; 4PPI = 4 Pairs of Permanent Incisors; AE =agro ecology; CV=Coefficient of Variation, R= coefficient of determination 05; P<0.01; 1PPI = 1 Pair of Permanent Incisors; 2 PPI = 2 Pair of Permanent Incisors; 3PPI = 3 Pair of Permanent Incisors; 4PPI = 4 Pair of ** Permanent Incisors; BL =Body Length; BCS = Body condition score, HG= Heart Girth, HtW=Height at wither, RH=Rump Height, RL= Rump Length, CW= Chest Width, PW=Pelvic width, EL=Ear Length, HL=Horn Length, SC=Scrotal circumference; NS = non-significant; NA = Not -available; N= number of observation ; r=coefficient of correlation ; HG = Heart Girth; CW = Chest width HW = Height Wither; PW = Pelvic Width; RH= Rump height, RL=Rump length; EL= ear length, BC = Body Condition Score; 0PPI = 0 Pair of Permanent Incisors, 1PPI =1 Pair of Permanent Incisors; 2 PPI = 2Pairs of Permanent Incisors; 3PPI = 3 Pairs of Permanent Incisors; 4PPI = 4 Pairs of Permanent Incisors

Table 1 :
Sample sizes by age group, breed group and sex for goats studied.

Table 2 :
Summary of the qualitative traits in the female and male sample goats

Table 3 :
Least squares means±standard errors of body weight (kg), body condition score & other body measurements (cm) for Woyto-Guji Goat

Table 4 :
Coefficients of correlation (r) between body weight and other body measurements within sex and age groups

Table 5a :
Live weight prediction equations at different age groups in female

Table 5b :
Live weight prediction equations at different age groups in male goat