Morphological characterization of breeds of sheep: a discriminant analysis approach

In this study the characterisation and separation/discrimination of three sheep breeds (crosses, West African Dwarfs (WAD) and West African Long Legged (WALL)] based on their physical traits (morphological characterisation) was investigated extensively with the application of discriminant analysis. The study’s main objective was specifically based on developing a variable selection criterion that can discriminate best among the three sheep breeds and as well as obtain a reliable mathematical function/equation (discriminant functions) for provision of maximum separation among the three known sheep breeds. Data from College of Education, Mampong animal farms on various breeds of sheep (hybrid/crossed breed, Sahell/WALL and Djallonke/WAD) was used. Factor Analysis was employed as a variable selection criterion for selecting six sheep traits that can discriminate best among the sheep breeds. Canonical discriminant function was derived for the eight variable data set and was compared with the derived quadratic discriminant functions (QDFs) using the six extracted sheep traits. The six variable QDF distance classifier provided maximum separation after cross validation than the 8-variable canonical discriminant functions. The derived mathematical functions (QDFs) were able to provide maximum separation among the three known sheep breeds with a correct classification rate of 0.86.