Genetic Evaluation of Linear Body Measurement of Local Muscovy Ducks in the Derived Savannah Zone of Nigeria

The study was conducted with the aim of using Linear Body Measurements (LBM) to predict Body Weight (BW) of Adult Muscovy Ducks. Data were collected with the aid of simple weighing machine and Tailor’s tape rule. Traits measured are on BW and Seven LBM ; Body Length (BL), Body Height (BH), Chest Width (CW), Shank Length (SL), Wing Length (WL), Head Length (HL), Neck Length (NL) from one hundred and twenty two adult Muscovy Ducks (Male: 69, Females:53). Result obtained indicated males (56%) significantly (P < 0.05) outnumbered females, which revealed that more males were brought to market for sale. Males (2.62±0.18 kg) were significantly (P < 0.05) heavier than female (2.03 + 0.06 kg), similar trend was observed in other LBM: Mean Body Length was 30.54 + 2.87 cm in male and 27.77 + 1.48 cm in female. No significant differences (P > 0.05) were observed between sexes for other body parameters. Coefficient of correlation between BW and LBM were generally positive in both males and females, high, positive and significant (P < 0.05) values were obtained between BW and BL (0.93), BW and CW (0.80) in males while in females the values were 0.82 and 0.71 respectively. Body weight predicted using BL and CW gave significant (P < 0.05) highest coefficient of determination (R2); 0.75 and 0.85 respectively. Multiple regressions gave significant improvement in R2 value. Conclusively, this study demonstrated that LBM are found useful in genetic evaluation of Muscovy ducks in the derived savannah zone and that BL and CW are important trait which can be used in predicting BW with high level of accuracy.