Abstract
ABSTRACTThe morphometry study contributes to the comprehension of the animal conformation. The objective of this research was to study the morphometric measurements of crossbred female Murrah buffaloes, aiming to give subsidies to the study of the relations between their body structures and productive or reproductive performances. The morphometric body measurements studied were: the breast width (BW), thigh width (THW), hip width (HW), rump width (RW), rump length (RL), animal depth (AD), body length (BL), front height (FH), hind height (HH), shoulder width (SW), thorax width (TW), loin width (LW), distance from the head to the ischium (DHI) and thoracic perimeter (TP). Descriptive and Pearson correlation analysis were performed. The average values were 43.72 (BW), 51.42 (TW), 39.99 (HIW), 25.38 (RW), 39.78 (RL), 71.72 (AD), 143.07 (BL), 130.05 (FH), 130.80 (HH), 33.00 (SW), 35.25 (CHW), 3.79 (LW), 180.15 (LHI) and 201.30 (TP). The highest correlations were 0.74 for the SW/CHW, 0.69 for the HIW/TW, 0.68 for the TP/RH, 0.66 for the CW/HIW, 0.65 for the HW/RH and 0.64 for the TW/CW. These correlation coefficients between the body morphometric measurements themselves can be used in the selections programmes.
Highlights
The buffaloes are originally Asian animals, having as their ancestor, the Bubalus arnee, Asian wild buffalo
**Significative the 1% (P < 0.01); *Significative the 5% (P < 0.05); breast width (BW), shoulder width (SW), thorax width (TW), loin width (LW), thigh width (THW), hip width (HW), rump width (RW), rump length (RL), animal depth (AD), body length (BL), distance of head until the ischium (DHI), front height (FH), hind height (HH) and thoracic perimeter (TP)
The results showed that just two correlations were significant, ear length (EL)/ear width (EW) and head length (HL)/face length (FL) (0.40, P < 0.01), which presented similar values between themselves (Table 4)
Summary
The buffaloes are originally Asian animals, having as their ancestor, the Bubalus arnee, Asian wild buffalo. The species presents great adaptive potential and milk production of high nutritional value, with high yield in the production processes of excellent derivatives, especially mozzarella cheese These traits have allowed advances in breeding buffaloes in the world milk market, providing strong demand for genetically superior animals in milk production systems. The phenotypic characterization of domestic animals consists of describing the exterior traits of each group, differing from other groups, when considered as a whole (Canelón 2005) This characterization included the biometric measurements of each animal’s body structure. Morphometric measurement research of animals has as their main objective to study the individual conformation, allowing the racial characterization and classification of the population This characterization allows the comparison between and inside genetic groups and establishes the association between the animal’s conformation and function. These traits contribute to the selection process, in identifying the morphologically superior animals, as well as eliminating the unwanted traits (Carvalho et al 2010; Lucena et al 2015)
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