Authors : A.B. Gbangboche, T.I. Alkoiret, S. Salifou, F. Farnir, P.L. Leroy and F.A. Abiola
Abstract: The weight patterns of the indigenous West African Dwarf (WAD) sheep and its crosses with the West African Long Legged (WALL) ram was analyzed using Gompertz (GP) and Von Bertalanffy (VB) models. Within both models, the VB model presents good accuracy of fit according to the higher determination coefficient, lowest mean squares errors, Bayesian information criterion and absolute mean residual deviation. Considering the models parameters (A, B and k), the correlations between A and k were negative. The values of A and B were respectively +15.90, +0.09 higher in F1 than WAD breeds. Otherwise, k is higher in WAD indicating the faster growth of this breed to reach maturity early than F1. For the live body weight (kg), the superiority of F1 over the WAD was as follow: +0.89 (BW), +1.68 (W3), +4.16 (W6), +6.36 (W9) and +9.32 (W12). When comparing the effects of sex, type of parturition and parity of ewe from birth up to 360 days of age, the trend of F1 was from +0.15 to +7.46 kg (single), + 0.57 to+9.98 kg (twin), +1.13 to +12.48 kg (male), +0.64 to +6.58 kg (female), +0.6 to +7.09 kg (parity2), +0.42 to +2.4 kg (parity3) and +0.13 to +7.33 kg (parity4) than WAD breed. This study may be helpful to improve the weight of WAD sheep through crossbreeding with WALL ram in controlled environment and early selection of ram for genetic improvement schemes.
A.B. Gbangboche, T.I. Alkoiret, S. Salifou, F. Farnir, P.L. Leroy and F.A. Abiola, 2011. Growth Pattern of Purebred West African Dwarf Sheep and its Crosses with the West African Long Legged. Research Journal of Animal Sciences, 5: 6-13.