Chest girth measurements in selection for body weight in cattle
A study was conducted in Nigeria on 30 Bunaji and 30 Sokoto Gudali cattle to select for growth rate on the basis of chest girth measurements during the commencement of the fattening period 4 weeks and 6 weeks after fattening. The predicted mean weights of the two breeds of cattle coefficients of variation ranged from 17 to 19.5% with a mean of 18.4%. At each of the periods, 80-91% of the variation in body weight was explained by the linear regression response from indirect to that from direct selection is in all cases above 80%. In general, the use of chest girth to estimate body weight in performance testing programmes in beef cattle selection would be expected to give a rate of response which would be about 90% of that obtained by using body weight. Although the genetic gain to be expected from the use of chest girth is smaller than when body weight itself is used, the loss in gain is only about 10%. It therefore chest girth measurement has a place where lack of weighing equipment is the only limitation to the implementation of a selection programme in beef cattle
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Journal Article biblioteca |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
1985
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| Subjects: | cattle, body weight, |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/66949 |
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