Open AccessPredicting body weight from body measurements of pre-pubertal Ayrshire heifers
Author(s) -
Päivi Mäntysaari
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
agricultural and food science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.347
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1795-1895
pISSN - 1459-6067
DOI - 10.23986/afsci.72727
Subject(s) - girth (graph theory) , body weight , zoology , body height , mathematics , biology , endocrinology , combinatorics
The relationship between heart girth, wither height, body length and body weight in 3- to 9.5-month-old pre-pubertal Finnish Ayrshire heifers gaining 600-650 g/d was analysed (experiment I). Regression analysis showed that heart girth was the trait most highly correlated to body weight (R2 = 0.969). Including body length or wither height as a second term in the regression, increased R2 values only slightly. When the relationship between heart girth and body weight was used to predict the body weight of heifers reared at two feeding levels (experiment II), the precision of prediction was affected by the plane of nutrition. Actual body weight for a given heart girth was slightly higher on the high than on the low feeding level. It is, nevertheless, concluded that the equations presented in the paper can be used to estimate accurately the body weight of pre-pubertal (95-140-cm heart girth) Ayrshire heifers gaining 550-700 g/d.