Osteometrical study on age related changes of the skull of Yankasa ram

Abstract

There is dearth of information on the biometry, clinical and applied anatomy of the head region, general morphology on the indigenous breed of sheep in particular, hence led to the motivation behind this study. This study gives the first biometric description of the skull of Yankasa indigenous breed of sheep in Nigeria.  Twenty-five heads (5 [0 – 6 months], 5 [6 months – 1 year], 5 [1 – 2 years], 5 [2 – 3 years] and 5 [ 3 years and above]) were collected from purposively and randomly sampled Yankasa male sheep from a slaughter slab and processed for biometrical investigation. Several biometrical measurements were recorded from each of the 25 skulls. From these, simple descriptive statistical analysis was obtained. The values obtained from these groups were increasing with ages. This study has described the biometric characteristics of the Yankasa sheep and concludes that a contribution for comparative model for other African local ovine breeds in general and Nigerian ovine breeds in particular has being made. Being the first study of its kind in Nigeria, it makes a significant contribution to a better understanding of the Yankasa sheep skull. It is envisaged that the results obtained in this study will be useful as baseline data in anatomical and archaeological studies.