Body Conformation Analysis through Biometric Traits in Borgou Cattle Breed Reared in on Station Conservation Farm in Northern Benin

With the view to study the body conformation in Borgou cattle breed, sixteen morphometric measurements were taken on 108 adult Borgou cattle reared at the Okpara breeding farm. The measured body parts were then subjected to a principal component analysis with Varimax rotation of the transformation matrix. The phenotypic correlation coefficients, mostly positive and significant, varied from -0.03 (canon perimeter and rump length) to 0.89 (back height and heigth at sacrum). Three components explaining 83% of the total variation were extracted. The first component explaining 35% of the total variation consisted of back height, height at withers, tail length, head width, rump length, pelvic width, head length, thurl width and canon perimeter in Borgou cattle. The second component (26% of the total variation) was influenced by hip width, body length and chest girth while the third component (22% of the total variation) highlighted the height at sacrum, shoulder width, distance between head until the ischium and chest width. The high values of the communalities (0.73 to 0.93) showed that the measurements strongly contributed to explain body conformation in Borgou cattle. The extraction of these three components can provide the basis for breeding and genetic improvement programs in Borgou cattle.