Morphometric and genetic characterization of mouli sheep of Karnataka

The study outlines the morphometric and genetic characterization of Mouli sheep in Karnataka. Body weight and measurements were taken on 44 rams and 263 ewes of 2-tooth to full mouth age. The mean (±SD) body weights were 41.1±6.0 and 58.1±10.9 kg for ewes and rams, respectively. The mean body length, height at withers and chest girth were 76.7±4.0, 79.3±3.2 and 81.3±3.6 cm in ewes and 84.9±5.1, 87.8±4.5 and 88.9±6.0 cm in rams, respectively. The coefficients of variation varied from 4.1 to 14.6% in ewes and 5.1 to 18.9% in rams for different morphometric traits, showing the lowest for height at withers in both sexes. Considerable level of genetic diversity was observed in animals through the genetic analysis. The observed and expected heterozygosity values were 0.637 and 0.783, respectively. The results also indicated no recent reduction in effective population size or a genetic bottleneck. The study showed that Mouli sheep morphologically closely resembled Madgyal sheep of Maharashtra and efforts should be made for their conservation for meat production in the region.