Predicting live weight of grasscutters using their linear body measurements

2016

English

A study was undertaken to predict the live weight (LW) of domestically kept grasscutters from body length (BL), tail length (TL), heart girth (HG) and head length (HL) using linear, quadratic and cubic functions. Data on LW, BL, TL, HG and HL were taken from 80 grasscutters between the ages of 12 and 18 months old. Linear, quadratic and cubic functions were fitted with LW as independent variable and BL, TL, HG or HL as predictor variables using the Generalized Linear Model (GLM) procedure of SAS. The correlations between the LW and linear body measurements were also determined for male, female and pooled data (both males and females). The correlation coefficients between LW and body measurements ranged from 0.33 to 0.76 for pooled data. The coefficients of determination (R²) for the prediction equations ranged from 8.2% to 81.4% for pooled data. Using the linear function, BL (54.3%) and HG (58.2%) were better predictors of LW than TL (10.8%) and HL (8.2%). The use of both BL and HG in a given function explained better the variation in LW than the use of just one body measurement. In all three functions, prediction equations involving males gave the best R2 values compared with those from females and pooled data

Hagan, B. A.; Nyameasem, J. K.; Asafu-Adjaye, A.; Daffour-Oduro, K. A.