Estimation of body and carcass weights in Saudi Arabian Najdi male camels

Abstract

Data on 227 Najdi male camels Camelus dromedaries were used to determine the relative value of body measurements in predicting body and carcass weights. Seven body measurements were obtained for each camel; length of neck, length of arm, length of leg, length o body, chest girth, hump girth and hip girth. The correlations of carcass weight with body measurements were higher than the observed correlations between body weight and body measurements. Correlations of body weight and carcass weight with chest girth, hump girth and hip girth were the highest among all the studied body measurements. Prediction equations were developed by maximum R2 procedure. The most efficient equations for estimating body or carcass weights were