Abstract :
Two experiments were conducted simultaneously to predict liveweight of 36 ram and 48 ewe lambs of Nilotic sheep (from
birth to onset of puberty) using body measurements. The lambs were grouped according to the dietary treatments of dura and
molasses based diets fed to their dams. The body weight, heart girth, wither height and scapuloischial length were measured
at birth, 2, 3, 4 and 6 months of age in experiments 1 and 2 (includes 8 months). The regressions of live weight on body
measurements showed non-linear relationship based on y = axb. In both genders, heart girth was highly correlated with
weight (r2 = 0.98 and 0.96, for males and females, respectively) relative to wither height and scapuloischial length (0.93
and 0.91 for males and 0.91 and 0.92 for females, respectively). The prediction of body weight of Nilotic sheep can be based
on y = 0.0001668x2.867 for males and y = 0.0010674x2.407 for females, where y and x are body weight and heart girth,
respectively.
© 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
