Comparison of three types of Indian donkey populations based on morphometric characteristics

Abstract

The three populations of Indian donkeys; Spiti donkeys distributed in Spiti and Yangthang regions of Himachal Pradesh, Sindhi donkey found in Barmer, Jaisalmer and Jodhpur districts of Rajsthan and Brown type donkeys found mainly in Kurnool and Anathapur districts of Andhra Pradesh were characterized and compared to ascertain whether any signiicant differences exist in these three populations of Indian donkeys in the studied morphometric parameters. The results of the F-test showed that these three populations to be signiicantly different (P<0.01) from each other, both in male and female animals, at almost all morphometric parameters studied. In pairwise comparison, the Sindhi donkeys showed signiicant differences from Spiti as well as Brown type donkeys of Andhra Pradesh in most of the studied morphometric parameters both in male and female animals.  However,  the  Brown  type  donkeys  of  Andhra  Pradesh  showed  signiicant  differences  from  Spiti donkeys only in limited number of biometric parameters both in male and female animals.