The Correlation Among Coat Color and Body Weight of Local Sheep in Indonesia

Abstract

A study was conducted to investigate the correlation between coat color scoring and the body weight of local sheep in Indonesia. A total of 469 sheep belong to Tawakkal Farm were used for the study and kept for 70-90 days with diet consisting of natural grasses, tofu by-product and concentrate mixture. The data comprised of coat color scoring, sex, age, origin and type of sheep as well as body condition score and were analysed using a General Linear Model with body weight as the dependent variable. Sex, age and body condition score showed a significant (P<0.01) influence to sheep body weight. However, the origin and the type of sheep as well as coat color scoring were unable to show the strong correlation to the body weight, with mean body weight was 27.1 kg. Dominant white color contributed 85.1% of the total sheep used in the study, whereas dominant brown and black color sheep was 2.9% and 11.9 %, respectively. Which means that dominant white color of sheep could be best adapted to the local environment and preferred by the farmers.