Image Process Tool an Alternative Method for Quantitative Assessment of Mammary Gland Structure in Mohabadi Goat

Milking ability in goat farming is not particularly new, however, it has frameworks for receiving economic benefits from marketing of milk. For this reason, investigation of varied methods plays an important role to evaluate mammary gland structure in dairy animal. Hence, the overall objective of current work was to test the image processing tools as an alternative method for quantitative assessment of mammary gland structure in Mohabadi goat. Under this circumstance, survey data was collected from 72 Mohabadi does from re-search station of Department of Animal Science, University of Tehran. The fixed effects for each candidate animal consists of pedigree, birth date, milk characteristics as well as monitoring the history of record dur-ing assessment was monitored. Image process tools was based on two stages: First, three different camera photos were taken from different angels of mammary gland structure from both sides of each animal and next step, Digimizzer image processing software was employed for further analysis and estimation of seven morphological dimensions (udder length, teat length and teat angle at both sides and as well as udder height). To investigate this statistically, the descriptive statistics, correlation, different regression analysis, principal component analysis and as well as association study between linear mammary gland traits and milk were analyzed using SAS 9.3 software. The highest correlation was observed in the length of right and left udder (r=0.67 P<0.05). The results revealed that the milk yield was significantly influenced by the length of the right teat (P<0.05). In conclusion, digital image processing may be considered as alternative tools for linear morphological characterization that would provide more accurate observation and measure-ments on the indigenous goat population.