Abstract

The study was carried out in a community goat breeding program at three villages of Bhaluka upazila in Mymensingh district to characterize Black Bengal goat (BBG) by coat color phenotype and morphological body measurements. Data on coat color and body measurements were collected among 200 BBG populations along with different ages and sexes from three villages and analyzed statistically by SPSS 17.0. Among the studied population, black coat color was the highest (53%), followed by brown bezoar (16%), silver bezoar (15%), black with toggenburg pattern (9%), dutch belt pattern (5%), solid brown (3%), and non-distinguished (1%). The average body weight, body length, chest girth, wither height, head length, head width, ear length and ear breadth were 1.36±0.03 kg, 19.40±0.10, 23.72±0.08, 22.88±0.04, 8.42±0.02, 6.41±0.01, 6.64±0.04 and 3.61±0.01cm, respectively at birth. The body weight, body length, chest girth and wither height of male kids were significantly (p<0.05-p<0.001) higher than those of female kids at birth. All the parameters were linearly increased with progressing ages and at 12 month age those traits averaged as 14.38±0.13 kg, 47.51±0.17, 56.94±0.13, 47.17±0.29, 17.42±0.09, 10.77±0.07, 14.42±0.08 and 6.06±0.03 cm, respectively. At six month and onward, all the body measurements in males were significantly (p<0.05-p<0.001) higher than those of females. Strong positive correlations were found among body weight, body length, chest girth, and wither height (ranging from 0.88 to 0.99). From this study, it can be concluded that rather than sex, there have no distinct morphological differences among BBG population of different areas and different coat color variants.

Keywords: Black Bengal goat, characterization, color morphology, body measurement