Recording birth weight has no significance in village based genetic improvement programs of small ruminants

Abstract

The present study was conducted to justify that keeping birth weight (BWT) records have little or no significance in genetic improvements of market or adult weights of small ruminants while implementation of community based breeding program (CBBP). Analyses of Pearson correlations ("r") between BWT and six month (6MW), BWT and nine month weight (9MW), three month weight (3MW) and 6MW and 3MW and 9MW were conducted for three indigenous Ethiopian goat breeds, namely Abergelle (AB), Central Highland (CH) and Woyto-Guji (WG).