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Relationship between body weight and body measurements of Aceh cattle

Putra¹*, W.P.B., Sumadi², Hartatik², T. and Saumar³, H.

¹Laboratory of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Indonesian Institute of Sciences Bogor, West Java 16911, Indonesia.
²Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Animal Science, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia.
³Indrapuri Breeding and Forages Centre (IBFC) of Aceh Cattle, Aceh 23363, Indonesia.

Malaysian J. Anim. Sci. 2015 18(1): 35-43

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Data on body weight (BW) and measurements: withers height (WH), body length (BL) and heart girth (HG) of 79 (39 males and 40 females) of Aceh cattle (average 550 days of age) were collected at the Breeding Station in Indrapuri district, Aceh Besar, Indonesia to estimate the BW from body measurements. The data were subjected to standard statistical analysis using SPSS 16.0 software and linear regression analysis was applied by keeping BW as dependent variable and body measurements of WH, BL and HG as the independent variables. The overall means (+ SD) for BW, WH, BL and HG of Aceh cattle over the sexes were 129.37 + 30.84 kg, 96.59 + 7.11 cm, 93.10 + 11.77 cm and 118.15 + 11.08 cm, respectively. Predicted BW based on C, E, F and G regression models showed no significant difference (P > 0.05) with the means of actual BW. The study revealed that HG was the best predictor of BW estimate and this alone contributed more than 80% of the variation in the BW of Aceh cattle. It is concluded that a simple linear regression involving HG as the predictor variable has a high accuracy in predicting BW.