Body weight and Morphometric traits characterization of Some Nigeria Homing Pigeons (Columbia livia).

Growth traits characterization of Nigeria homing pigeons was done using one hundred and thirty eight (138) birds from three locations (LCT) of different agro-ecological zones in Nigeria [Kebbi (KEB):North West; Ilorin (ILR): North Central and Osogbo (OSG): South West]. Parameters measured were body weight (BW) in gram and morphometric body parameters in cm viz. Head length (HL), beak length (BL), neck length (NL), body length (BL), body girth (BG), wing length (WL), body height (BH), thigh length (TL), drumstick length (DL) and keel length (KL). The results showed that, significant (p<0.05) differences existed between body weight and body parameters measured except BL. ILR pigeons had significantly (p<0.05) higher BW (263.51g) compared to OSG (204.15), but similar (p>0.05) to KEB (249.76g); the morphometric body parameters measured showed that HL, BG and WL values were significantly (p<0.05) higher in ILR; OSG had significantly (p<0.05)  higher values for  KL, while KEB pigeons had  significantly (p<0.05) higher values for  BL, NL, BH, TL, DL, and SL. Positive and significant correlations (p<0.01, 0.05) exists between locations, NL, SL and BH; BW was negatively correlated with locations with a significant (0.01) value of -0.58. PCA shows the clustering of growth traits from 18.94 to 25.14% under PC1 and 2, canonical discriminant functions gouped KEB and OSG with 56.60%; ILR and KEB with 43.60% while hierarchical clustering shows that KEB homing piegons are distinct from those of ILR and OSG. This results shows that  locations have significant effects on growth traits in Nigeria homing pigeons.