Morphometric characteristics of Shahabadi lambs at birth under field conditions

Abstract

A survey was undertaken in 105 flocks of Shahabadi sheep reared in Buxar, Bhojpur and Rohtas districts of Bihar to study the morphometric traits of lambs at birth. The traits included in the present study were body length, height at withers, chest girth, face length, ear length and tail length. The effect of non- genetic factors such as sex, season, type of birth, flock size and location on the morphometric traits were studied using simple linear statistical model. The least squares means of body length, height at withers, chest girth, face length, ear length and tail length at birth pooled over sexes were found to be 26.21±0.12 cm, 34.08±0.11 cm, 33.62±0.12 cm, 8.16±0.08 cm, 9.01±0.08 cm and 17.29±0.12 cm, respectively. The effect of all the non-genetic factors considered in the present study had highly significant (P<0.01) effect on all the morphometric traits studied.

Keywords

• Birth
• Morphometry
• Shahabadi sheep