MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTION VARIABLES OF LAYER CHICKENS ON DEEP-LITTER IN THE HUMID TROPICS

Chicken breeding is a technical enterprise that involves specific and timely strategies to manipulate latent Factors. It is also intensive and involves high managerial competence for high profitability. Data on Hen day production, egg weight, Age in production (Prodage), Season, Strain (genotype) and Batch on weekly basis were obtained from Layer chicken from a popular chicken farm in Ibadan. These data covered the production cycle of 2 Strains – Bovan Nera and Isa Brown – of chicken. Data covered 20 batches of each strain covering a period of 10 years. Data were analyzed using the Multivariate procedures of descriptive, ANOVA (P<0.05), Pearsons’ Correlation, Principal component Analysis (PCA) and Common Factor analysis (CFA). Findings from the study indicated better productive indices for Wet than Dry season. PCA extracted 3 components while the Varimax rotation with Keizer normalization produced 3 orthogonal Factors with high loadings for Prodage and egg weight under Age Factor, Batch and Season under Environmental Factors, and Hen day production and Strain under Genetic Factor. These results have implications and require management and breeding strategies to utilize them for technical efficiency in the environment

VARIABILITY AND CO-RELATIONSHIP OF BODY TRAITS IN WEST AFRICAN DWARF GOATS IN A TROPICAL HUMID ENVIRONMENT

To understand variability and phenotypic association among body traits in West African Dwarf goats, morphological traits were examined based on location and sex. Two hundred and twenty-seven (227) goats in two Nigerian states were surveyed. Randomized complete block with Factorial treatment design, GLM, Pearson’s phenotypic correlation procedures of SAS® was employed. Morphological and index traits examined were body weight (BWT), hearth girth (HGH), diagonal trunk length (DTL), height at the withers (HWT), height at the rump (HRP); and Trunk length index (TLI), over-building index (OBI), body depth index (BDI), body breath index (BBI), withers-girth index (WGI), body-length index (BLI)and Weight-height index (WHI). BWT, DTL, TLI, OBI, BLI and WHI were influenced (P<0.05) by location, while DTL, TLI, OBI, BDI, BBI and BLI were influenced (P<0.05) by interaction of Location and Sex. Does recorded higher (P<0.05) BWT, TLI and BLI (27.75, 183.62 and 156.33), while Bucks had higher (P<0.05) DTL, HGH, HWT, HRP, OBI, BDI, BBI, WGI and WHI (80.57, 58.78, 46.89, 46.36, 99.29, 126.01, 127.01, -26.02 and 45.83). Ekiti goats recorded higher OBI, while Osun goats were higher on DTL, TLI, BLI and WHI (P<0.05). Highest correlation for females and males were between BWT/WHI (r =0.952/0.967, P<0.0001); for BWT/WHI were (r =0.969/0.972, 0.0001); and between HRP/HWT (r =0.953/0.929, P<0.0001) on Ekiti and Osun goats respectively. Between Ekiti and Osun goats BWT/WHI (r =0.969/0.972, P<0.0001) and HRP/HWT (r =0.953/0.929, P<0.0001) were obtained. CVs were highest on WGI (-69.65/-45.16); BWT (31.89/43.79), and WHI (29.25/35.54) for Does and Bucks; while WGI (-56.72/57.42), BWT (53.51/46.78) and WHI (42.09/36.76) were higher for Ekiti and Osun goats. Significant (P<0.0001) phenotypic correlation were obtained between BWT, DTL, HWT, HGH individually, and many other traits (r =0.336-0.957)