Study of morphometric traits in farmbred geese population

The present investigation was focused to document the morphological traits of farmbred geese population in Tamil Nadu. Body measurements on beak length, beak width, neck length, trunk length, body length, chest width, chest circumference, wing length, tibial length, tibial circumference, metatarsal length, metatarsal circumference and live body weight were recorded on a farmbred geese population maintained at Sheep Breeding Research Station, Sandynallah, The Nilgiris. The mean live body weight (pooled gender) of less than one month, 1-4 month and more than one year age were 0.56±0.27kg, 2.53±0.36kg and 3.08±0.30 kg, respectively. The consistent correlation of body length, neck length, chest width and chest circumference with live body weight in both grower and adult stage were observed. The geese variety in Tamil Nadu was studied for its morphometric traits for the first time to generate the basic data that can be used for further characterization of the population which was very much needed.

Introduction

Domestic geese (Anser anser domesticus) are known for its high growth rate, free range grazing, disease resistance (NRC, 1991) [9] and high quality meat (Romanov, 1999) [10]. Since, geese are grass foragers and weeders it is suitable for farming in wetlands. Geese farming will give additional income besides its protein rich meat. The practice of geese farming in India, particularly in Tamil Nadu is very much limited even in available wetland areas.

The reasons may be due to lack of awareness about geese varieties, feeding, breeding and marketing. Hence, scientific literatures on geese husbandry, research and development in India and in Tamil Nadu are scanty. The available literatures are on the status, growth and production of domestic geese in Kashmir valley (Hamadini, H. et al., 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2020) [2], [3], [4], [5]; characterization and performance evaluation of indigenous geese in Assam (Hoque, H. et al., 2023) [7]; growth and hatch performance of geese in hilly terrain of Nilgiris (Kumar, A. et al., 2015) [8]; In India, the only recognized and registered geese breed is Kashmir Anz (Verma, et al. 2017) [13]. Characterization of any new population and its recognition requires extensive data on various aspects viz. morphology and molecular levels.

The present investigation was focused to document the morphological traits of farmbred geese population in Tamil Nadu.

Materials And Methods

Body measurements on beak length (BKL), beak width (BKW), neck length (NL), trunk length (TRL), body length (BL), chest width (CW), chest circumference (CC), wing length (WL), tibial length (TL), tibial circumference (TC), metatarsal length (MTL), metatarsal circumference (MTC) and live body weight (LBW) were recorded on both sexes of 90 geese maintained at Sheep Breeding Research Station (SBRS), Sandynallah, The Nilgiris. The points of measurements were taken as per Szabone Willin (1997) [12]. Recorded data were subjected for appropriate statistical analysis (Harvey, W.R., 1990) [6].

Results And Discussion

Live body weight and morphomoetric traits The mean live body weight (pooled gender) of less than one month, 1-4 month and more than one year age were 0.56±0.27 kg, 2.53±0.36 kg and 3.08±0.30 kg, respectively. Kumar, A. et https://www.veterinarypaper.com comparable. All twelve morphological parameters were first time documented in the geese from Tamil Nadu (Table 1). It forms the basic morphometric data useful for further characterization of the geese population in Tamil Nadu. al., (2015) [8] reported the body weight of one month and four month age as 0.61±11.30 kg and 2.68±0.04 kg, respectively.

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The mean value of different body measurements observed in different age groups.

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The differences observed were may be due to the year, season effect. Also, the differences in body weight of similar age groups between these two studies were not remarkable but Table 1: The mean value of different body measurements observed in different age groups. Geese (Anser Anser Domesticus) under Local Conditions of Kashmir, India. Indian Journal of Animal Science. 2014b;84(5):108-109. 5.

Hamadani H, Khan AA, Banday MT. Kashmir Anz geese breed. World's Poultry Science Journal; c2020. DOI: 10.1080/00439339.2020.1711293. 6.

Harvey WR. Mixed Model Least-squares and Maximum Likelihood Computer Programme. PC–2 version. Columbus: Ohio State University; c1990. 7.

Hoque H, Phookan A, Goswami RN, Kalita D, Das B, Das A, Khanikar D. Characterization and performance evaluation of indigenous geese of Assam. Indian Journal of Animal Sciences. 2023;93(2):62-66. 8. Kumar RA, Iyue M, Venkataramanan R.

Growth and hatch performance of geese in Hilly Terrain of Nilgiris. In: Proceedings of IV World Waterfowl Conference. Thrissur, India; c2009 Nov 11-13. p. 115-123. 9. National Research Council (NRC).

Micro-Livestock: Little Known Small Animals with Promising Economic Future. Washington: National Academy Press; c1991. 10. Romanov MN. Goose production efficiency as influenced by genotype, nutrition and production system.

World Poultry Science Journal. 1999;55:281-294. 11. Saatci M, Tilki M. Zoometrical body measurements and their relation with live weight in native Turkish geese. Turk J Vet Anim Sci. 2007;31(1):47-53. 12.

Szabone Willin E. Changing of body measurements and the correlation of these withy body weight from 0-16 weeks of age in geese. Allattenyesztes es Takarmanyozas. 1997;46:409-414. 13. Verma NK, Sharma R, Ahlawat S.

ICAR-NBAGR Newsletter (April-September, 2017). Karnal: ICAR- National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources; c2017. Age <1 month 1-4 month >1 year (Male) Gender Pooled (11) Male (6) Female (9) Male (28) Female (36) LBW (in kg) 0.56±0.27 2.53±0.41 2.53±0.32 3.32±0.31 2.84±0.29 BKL (in cm) 3.93±0.80 8.03±0.66 7.79±0.68 10.68±0.66 8.65±0.67 BKW (in cm) 2.10±0.54 3.30±0.20 3.30±0.20 3.53±0.19 3.19±0.18 NL (in cm) 11.90±2.36 23.60±1.02 22.80±1.09 33.37±2.01 28.22±1.74 TRL (in cm) 16.36±3.52 27.40±1.20 26.20±1.99 26.51±1.90 24.70±2.18 BL (in cm) 28.27±5.62 51.00±1.79 49.00±2.65 59.89±2.88 52.93±2.85 CC (in cm) 17.90±2.25 34.80±1.60 35.10±2.67 41.33±2.34 38.75±1.89 CW (in cm) 7.04±1.36 11.40±1.28 11.70±0.83 13.57±1.02 12.70±1.39 WL (in cm) 10.54±3.40 22.90±0.80 22.90±2.20 25.62±1.63 24.55±1.36 TL (in cm) 9.45±1.90 13.30±0.42 13.20±0.83 15.42±0.86 13.76±0.84 TC (in cm) 5.22±0.68 7.90±0.70 6.80±0.40 6.78±0.56 6.60±0.52 MTL (in cm) 4.04±0.41 5.00±0.00 4.94±0.17 5.46±0.48 5.11±0.29 MTC (in cm) 5.04±1.12 7.17±0.41 6.94±0.58 7.67±0.56 7.04±0.57 Phenotypic correlations Live body weight of a goose is determined by size and density of organs at a given age (Brody, 1945 and Saatci, M., et al. 2007) [1], [11]. At the age of less than one month, BKL, CC and BL had significant correlation of 0.884, 0.747 and 0.693 with LBW respectively.

It may be due to juvenile stage of development of neck, wing, leg, chest and internal organs. Hence, LBW of gosling is primarily determined by hardy beak along with BL. As the bird grows all body parts including neck, wing, leg, chest, internal organs also increase both in size and density. This upward trend continues till bird reaches adult stage of around one year.

Present study supported this by revealing significant correlation between almost all body measurements and LBW. Indeed, CW, NL, WL and BL showed correlation of 0.985, 0.974, 0.971 and 0.959 with LBW respectively during 1-4 month of age. Expectedly, CC, BL and NL showed high correlation of 0.864, 0.771 and 0.701 with LBW in adult birds. The consistent relationship of BL, NL, CW and CC with LBW in both grower and adult stage is noteworthy.

Conclusion

The geese variety in Tamil Nadu was studied for its morphometric traits for the first time to generate the basic data that can be used for further characterization of the population which was very much needed. The body weights of the geese at different ages were showed high correlations with BL, NL, CW and CC.

Acknowledgement

The data collected from the Sheep Breeding Research Station, Sandynallah, The Nilgiris is highly acknowledged.

1. Brody S. Bioenergetics and Growth. New York: Reinhold Publication Corporation; c1945.
2. Hamadani H, Khan AA, Mir MS, Ganai TAS, Banday MT, Hamadani A. Status of Domestic Geese (Anser Anser Domesticus) in Kashmir. SKUAST Journal of Research. 2013;15(1):1-6.
3. Hamadani H, Khan AA, Mir MS, Banday MT, Ganai TAS, Hamadani A. Morphometric characterization of Local Geese in the Valley of Kashmir. Indian Journal of Animal Science. 2014a;84(9):978-981.
4. Hamadani H, Khan AA, Ganai TAS, Banday MT, How to Cite This Article Jagadeesan K. Study of morphometric traits in farmbred geese population. International Journal of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry. 2024;SP-9(4):30-31. Creative Commons (CC) License This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non- commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. Hamadani A. Growth and Production Traits of Domestic