Correlation of body weight and body measurements of buffaloes

The Para state, located in northern Brazil is the largest producer of buffaloes in Brazil. In this regard, the determination of the buffaloes body weight is important to evaluate the growth and nutritional status, and establish the animal's sale value. However, the economic reality of farms in the Lower Amazon does not allow the purchase of analythical balances considered financially costly. Minervino et al., (2008) studied the characterization of the productive system of Santarém livestock, and found that only 38.1% of the properties had balance, so alternatives such as body measurements to determine the weight of the animals become important. The aim of this study was to obtain body weight and height measurements at the withers height (WH), hip height (HH), body length (BL), pelvic length (PL), thoracic perimeter (TP), scrotal circumference (SC) and rump width (RW) and then the Pearson correlations between the weight and measures. Eighteen males were measured aged 2 and 3 years from properties in the city of Santarém-PA, with analythical balances. The Pearson correlation coefficients between the body measurements were calculated using the CORR procedure, with 1% probability. The results were: weight 329,74kg ([+ or -] 44,45 kg); WL 127,42 cm ([+ or -] 8.02); HH 126,84cm ([+ or -] 5,03 cm); PL 320,82 cm ([+ or -] 9,86 cm); BL 175,05 cm ([+ or -] 10,58 cm); TP 170,16 cm ([+ or -] 11,1cm); SC 25,75 cm ([+ or -] 1,48 cm) and RW 69,75 cm ([+ or -] 3,9 cm). Among the measures analyzed only pelvic length and thoracic perimeter showed higher degree of association with body weight (0.865 and 0.832, respectively). We concluded that the thoracic perimeter (in the form of a zoometric tape) is an efficient way to estimate the live weight of buffalos in the absence of an analytical balance at the place where the animals are.