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
Highlights
IntroductionGoats are popularly known as poor’s people cow. Goats have been reared in Bangladesh from the time of human settlement in this part of the earth
Among small ruminants, goats are popularly known as poor’s people cow
Relationship between body weight and length might be due to close association between weight and growth of muscles and bones leading to increase in length
Summary
Goats are popularly known as poor’s people cow. Goats have been reared in Bangladesh from the time of human settlement in this part of the earth. Akhtar et al 87 world population), within which the largest populations are found in China (35.36%), India (25.46%), Pakistan (10.79%) and Bangladesh (7.05%) as reported by (FAO, 2011). These countries together possess about 71.61% of the population of goats in Asia. Morphometric measurement in live animals is important as it has correlation with body weight and growth traits and could be associated with other production traits. The aim of the study was to explore the morphometric characterization of BBG from three villages’ goat population as to enrich the available information on the study for this matter conducted so far in the country
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