Phenotypic characterization of linear body measurements of Guinea pigs (Cavia Porcellus) in the middle belt of Ghana

Abstract— The study was carried out to investigate the phenotypic characteristics, relationship between body weight and linear body measurements of Guinea pigs in the middle belt of Ghana. A total number of 367 Guinea pigs of about four weeks old were used for the studies. The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, 310 Guinea pigs were sampled using snowball sampling method. Fifty four Guinea pigs were reared for four months in the second phase. Simple linear regression equation was used for body weight and linear body measurements. All the data were analyzed by using R statistical software version 4.2.1 and SPSS version 21.0. The effects of location had significant (p ≤ 0.01) variation effect on Guinea pigs whilst sex did not have significant effect (p > 0.05) on cavies. The highest correlation value (0.91) was between body length and heart girth. The least correlation value (0.21) was found between body weight and fore leg length. The simple linear regression equation: Y= -214.69+5.51BL+10.11HG+15.74HW+18.16HL-7.74HLL-5.34FLL, body length (BL), heart girth (HG), height-at-withers (HW) and head length (HL) were the best predictor of body weight in Guinea pigs with R2 of 0.80. The best time to predict the body weight of Guinea pig was in week 2. However, it was concluded that the linear body measurements of Guinea pigs in the middle belt of Ghana serve as good indicators to predict live body weight which breeders can use for breeding purposes