Avaliação fenotípica de cordeiros pantaneiros e seus biotipos

Abstract

The objectives of this dissertation were: a) initially through a systematized literature review (meta-analysis) to define the current status of morphological studies of locally adapted sheep (Chapter 1); b) in an exploratory study of a sheep herd identify differents biotypes of Pantaneiros lambs and relate them to the confinement performance, body weight gain, digestibility and carcass yield (Chapter 2). Chapter 1: for the meta-analysis, a search was made for scientific articles in the public domain, which resulted in a database consisting of 21 articles, 72 treatments and 19,656 animals, with studies from 2008 to 2018, totaling 10 years of research. The data obtained reinforce the importance of studying the morphology of animals, especially when demanding to create patterns for a native breed. Chapter 2: For the study of Pantaneiros lambs, 26 quantitative morphological and 11 qualitative measurements were performed at the beginning and at the end of experimental confinement. These measurements were analyzed by the Minitab statistical program, through multivariate factorial and cluster analysis. In the factorial analysis of the initial quantitative morphological variables, 6 factors were extracted, explaining 76.2% of the data variation; for the final quantitative morphological variables, 7 factors were extracted, explaining 79% of the data variation. Through the study of clusters were generated five situations of differentiation of the biotypes: initial quantitative morphology, final quantitative morphology, qualitative morphology, initial quantitative morphology + qualitative morphology and final quantitative morphology + qualitative morphology. The groups formed in the clusters study presented distinction as to consumption, performance and characteristics of the carcass depending on the morphological evaluation used in the grouping. This indicates that it is possible to predict through the animal's biotype groups that show better results in confinement and carcass.