IDENTIFICATION, PREDICTION OF AGE AND PRODUCTION PERFORMANCE IN BOVINES USING MUZZLE PRINTOMETRY TECHNIQUE
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Date
1998
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AAU, Anand
Abstract
The present investigation was carried out to identify and predict the age and production performance of bovines by muzzle printometry technique. A total of 783 animals of various age groups of different bovine breeds viz. crossbred, Jersey, Holstein Friesian, Gir and Kankrej cattle as well as Surti and Jaffarabadi buffaloes maintained at various Livestock Research Stations of Gujarat Agricultural University were included in the present study.A new modified technique was developed for obtaining the clear and quick muzzle print by (a) slightly modifying the curvature of metal pad, (b) applying the sweat pad for checking the sweat and (c) muzzle print on plane thick white duplicating paper.The coding of whole muzzle for identification was done on the basis of muzzle groove and muzzle characteristics. The grooved muzzles were prominent in indigenous breeds of cattle, while buffaloes had incomplete type of groove only. The elliptical shape of groove was maximum (39.8 to 58.3 percent) in all the breeds of cattle, while arrow and bell shaped grooves observed in buffaloes only. It was observed that muzzle prints of buffaloes did not have ridged beads and tubular spaces. Analysis of variance showed significant differences among the breeds for various muzzle measurements and characteristics, except ridged beads. Hence, a combined approach of classification , muzzle as a whole with muzzle measurements and characteristics in different sectors of muzzle improved the accuracy of identification.For determining the age, muzzle prints of different breeds were further classified into various age groups for muzzle measurements (basal length, upper length, central length and distance between nostrils) and characteristics (bead, clustered bead, ridged bead and total converted bead).
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LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION, TECHNIQUE