ABSTRACT
The study was conducted with the objective of undertaking morphological characterization of indigenous goat population. A total of 640 goats were randomly selected from three districts and body weight and linear body measurements were recorded. All the quantitative traits were significantly (p < 0.05) affected by sex, age classes and agro-ecology except ear length and tail length. The lowland goat population had significantly higher body measurements than midland and highland goat population. The overall (LSM ± SE) of matured goat body weight, heart girth, and height at withers were 29.13 ± 0.22 kg, 71.24 ± 0.20 cm, and 66.61 ± 0.18 cm, respectively. The multiple regression analysis showed that heart girth explained more variation on body weight than any other linear body measurements. Therefore, body weight can be predicted using hearth girth with the equation y = −41.6 + 0.99x for does and y = −44.3 + 1.10x for bucks.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).