Demographic variations in biometric traits of Kashmir merino sheep in Kashmir valley

Data on 865 upgraded Kashmir Merino sheep sheep for body length (BL), chest girth (CG), height at weather (WH), ear length (EL), tail length (TL), face length (FL), body weight (BW) and horn length (HL) were analyzed with sex, age, and locations as fixed factors. The overall estimates of 58.16±0.51cm, 74.72±0.71cm, 62.07±0.68cm, 10.69±0.19, 32cm, .25±0.48cm, 32.25±0.48cm, 20.05±0.28cm, 31.90±0.54kg and 27.41±2.2cm for BL, CG, WH, EL, TL, FL, BW and HL, respectively. The effect of age, sex and location was highly significant (P<0.01) on all traits under study with sexual dimorphism of 1.04, 1.06, 1.03, 1.05, 1 .07, 1.10, 1.08 and 1.23 for BL, CG, WH, EL, TL, FL, BW and HL, respectively was observed in favour of males. All the biometric traits presented increasing trend up to four years. Phenotypic correlation among all the traits was positive, significant and ranging from low to very high. Body weight had moderate phenotypic association with ear length, and horn length and high association with face length and tail length. When biometric traits were considered separately in regression analysis the highest R² was obtained for height at withers followed tail length in females whereas highest R² in males was obtained for CG followed by body height. It is concluded that Kashmir Merino is a variable sheep and environments factors significant influence on the biometric traits. It is also concluded that morphometric measurements can be used to determine live body weight under field conditions in the absence of weighing balance.