West African donkey's liveweight estimation using body measurements

Vet World Vol.10 October-2017 Article-10

Research Article

Veterinary World, 10(10): 1221-1226

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2017.1221-1226

Pierre Claver Nininahazwe¹, Adama Sow¹, Rakiswende Constant Roamba², Miguiri Kalandi¹, Hachi Dirir Ahmed³, Georges Anicet Ouedraogo⁴, and Germain Jerome Sawadogo¹

1. Inter-States School of Veterinary Science and Medicine, Laboratory of Endocrinology and Radio-Immunology, BP. 5077, Dakar Fann, Senegal.
2. Directorate General of Veterinary Services, 03 BP. 7026, Ouagadougou 03, Burkina Faso.
3. Department of Livestock and Veterinary Services Boulaos, BP. 297, Djibouti City, Republic of Djibouti.
4. Laboratory of Teaching and Research in Animal Health and Biotechnology, Polytechnic University 01 BP. 1091 Bobo-Dioulasso 01, Burkina Faso.

Background and Aim: The objective of this study was to determine a formula for estimating the liveweight in West African donkeys.

Materials and Methods: Liveweight and a total of 6 body measurements were carried out on 1352 donkeys from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Senegal. The correlations between liveweight and body measurements were determined, and the most correlated body measurements with liveweight were used to establish regression lines.

Results: The average weight of a West African donkey was 126.0±17.1 kg, with an average height at the withers of 99.5±3.67 cm; its body length was 104.4±6.53 cm, and a heart girth (HG) of 104.4±6.53 cm. After analyzing the various regression lines and correlations, it was found that the HG could better estimate the liveweight of West African donkeys by simple linear regression method. Indeed, the liveweight (LW) showed a better correlation with the HG (R2=0.81). The following formulas (Equations 1 and 2) could be used to estimate the LW of West Africa donkeys. Equation 1: Estimated LW (kg) = 2.55 x HG (cm) - 153.49; Equation 2: Estimated LW (kg) = Heart girth (cm)2.68 / 2312.44.

Conclusion: The above formulas could be used to manufacture weighing tape to be utilized by veterinary clinicians and farmers to estimate donkey's weight in the view of medication and adjustment of load. Keywords: body measurements, donkey, estimated liveweight, West Africa.

Keywords: body measurements, donkey, estimated liveweight, West Africa.

How to cite this article: Nininahazwe PC, Sow A, Roamba RC, Kalandi M, Ahmed HD, Ouedraogo GA, Sawadogo GJ (2017) West African donkey's liveweight estimation using body measurements, Veterinary World, 10(10): 1221-1226.

Received: 07-07-2017 Accepted: 15-09-2017 Published online: 12-10-2017

Corresponding author: Adama Sow E-mail: wosamada@yahoo.fr

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2017.1221-1226

Copyright: Nininahazwe, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.