ESTIMATION OF GENETIC PARAMETERS FOR MORPHOMETRIC TRAITS AND BODY WEIGHT IN FEMALE PERANAKAN ETAWAH (PE) GOATS Firman Riski Siburian (a) and Veronica Margareta Ani Nurgiartiningsih (a*)
a) Faculty of Animal Science, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, 65145, Indonesia
Abstract
The improvement of livestock genetics and performance depends on understanding genetic parameters that determine how traits respond to selection. This study aimed to estimate the genetic parameters of female Peranakan Etawah (PE) goats reared at BPTU-HPT Pelaihari, South Kalimantan. A total of 93 goats aged 61-190 days were analyzed, focusing on body weight and four morphometric traits: body length, withers height, hip height, and hip width. Age was included as a covariate to minimize the influence of age differences, while season of birth (SoB) and birth type (BT) were treated as fixed effects, and sire was included as a random effect to account for genetic relationships among offspring. Heritability estimates were obtained using analysis of variance (ANOVA), and genetic correlations were analyzed through a multivariate mixed model using the MCMCglmm package in R Studio. The heritability values ranged from low to high, with body length 0.18(0.31) categorized as low, hip height 0.29(0.33), withers height 0.42(0.37), and body weight 0.39(0.36) as moderate, and hip width 0.76(0.43) as high. Genetic correlations between body weight and morphometric traits showed a high correlation with body length 0.51(0.30), moderate correlations with withers height 0.44(0.34) and hip height 0.45(0.34), and a low correlation with hip width 0.22(0.32). These results indicate that selection based on body weight and hip width could simultaneously improve key morphometric traits, supporting further genetic progress in PE goat breeding at BPTU-HPT Pelaihari.
