Morphological Indices and Carcass Measurements of Indigenous Breeds of Rams Intensively Fattened

Growth rate assessment is an important husbandry practice often carried out in livestock breeding and fattening. Meat production is the most important trait in the breeding objectives of sheep production. Useful information on the suitability of the animals for meat production could be evaluated on a morphological basis. The aim of this study was to investigate breed differences in liveweight, carcass traits and muscle distribution for meat characteristics among Balami (BA), Uda (UD), Yankasa (YK) and West African Dwarf rams (WAD). A total of forty-eight rams were randomly assigned into four groups of twelve rams per breed in a completely randomized design. Body linear measurements were obtained weekly during the fattening period. At the end of the feeding trial, animals were subjected to an 18-hours fast and slaughtered for carcass measurements and muscle distribution. Results showed that BA and UD had higher values for body length (115.75±4.25 and110.25±1.89cm), withers height (70.50±5.57and69.00±2.16cm) and heartgirth (92.00±2.94and84.00±1.41cm), than YK (96.50±3.87, 60.75±3.30 and 76.75±0.96cm), respectively which in turn had higher values than WAD (86.50±5.20, 53.25±5.32 and 75.25±3.30cm). Carcass length, pistol length, and leg length were75.75±4.79,60.75±7.14 and 88.00±2.16; 75.50±4.66, 56.00±5.00 and 80.25±5.80; 59.00±7.79, 56.00±10.62 and 71.50±2.65; 60.50±3.11, 53.75±5.91 and 61.00±2.94cm for BA, UD, YK and WAD rams, respectively. BA and UD had higher proportion of muscle distribution and were generally better than the YK and WAD breeds. This may boost their potential for large scale meat production under fattening conditions.