Nguni Cattle Body Weight Estimation using Regression Analysis
Nguni Cattle Body Weight Estimation using Regression Analysis
Victoria Rankotsane Hlokoe, Thobela Louis Tyasi*
ABSTRACT
Regression analysis is used for estimating the relationship between the dependent variable and one or more independent variables. The current study was carried out to determine the relationship among measured body measurement traits such as heart girth (HG), body weight (BW), rump width (RW), body length (BL), head length (HL), withers height (WH), ear length (EL), rump height (RH), head width (HW) and sternum height (SH), and to detect the best-fitted regression model for the prediction of BW of Nguni cattle. A total of 70 Nguni cattle (59 females and 11 males) aged 2-4 years were employed in the current study. Pearson’s correlation and stepwise regression techniques were employed for the analysis of data. The association findings showed that BW had a positively high significant association (P < 0.01) with WH (r = 0.94), HG (r = 0.91), RH (r = 0.88), SH (r = 0.90), RW (r = 0.73), and a positive statistical significant correlation (P < 0.05) with EL (r = 0.47), and BL (r = 0.46) in males. On the other hand, BW had a positively high remarkable relationship (P < 0.01) with HG (r = 0.75), RH (r = 0.69) and WH (r = 0.57), and a positive statistical significant correlation (P < 0.05) with BL (r = 0.43), SH (r = 0.38) and HW (r = 0.28) in females. Stepwise regression results showed that the model, including WH, HG, SH, RH, RW, HL, EL, and BL was the best-fitted model (R2 = 0.95, MSE = 817.51) for the estimation of BW in males, and the model with parameters of HG, RH and WH was the best-fitted model (R2 = 0.62, MSE = 4887.31) for the estimation of BW in female Nguni cattle. Correlation outcomes suggest that enhancement of WH, HG, SH, RH, RW, EL, BL, and HW might improve the BW of Nguni cattle. The regression results suggested that BW could be estimated accurately by the combination of two or more biometric traits. The findings might help cattle farmers to predict body weight using biometric traits.
Keywords | Body length, Correlation, Heart girth, Rump height, Sternum height
To share on other social networks, click on any share button. What are these?
