Morphometric characterization of Kacang goats raised in lowland and highland areas of Jambi Province, Indonesia.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to characterize Kacang goats (aged 1-2 years) in the highland (group 1) and lowland (group 2) areas of Jambi Province based on their body measurements and body indices.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 320 goats were collected from lowland (n = 160), and highland (n = 160) areas with sex proportions of 80 bucks and 80 does for each area. Eight body measurements and 12 body indices were used to characterize the Kacang goats from different areas.
RESULTS: The research showed that each animal group had one principal component (PC) for body measurements and four PCs for body indices. Thus, the body measurement of rump height (RH) and the body indices of area index, weight index, and thoracic development were suggested as the variables to distinguish the Kacang goats from different areas. However, the canonical correlation (rc) value in the study was approximately 0.30 (low). Therefore, about 59.4% (lowland) and 60.6% (highland) of Kacang goats were characterized by the body measurements, and the body indices were indicated approximately 48.8% (lowland) and 61.2% (highland) of Kacang goats. A cluster analysis of the four Kacang populations revealed that Kacang goats in this study were grouped into a first cluster (Kerinci) and a second cluster (Muaro Jambi, Batanghari, and Sungai Penuh).
CONCLUSION: It is concluded that body measurements and body indices cannot characterize the Kacang goats from lowland and highland areas. Copyright: © Journal of Advanced Veterinary and Animal Research.

Introduction

Kacang goats, the native Indonesian goats, are kept by smallholders for meat production. The average slaughter weight, carcass weight, carcass percentage, and non-carcass percentage in Kacang bucks fed a soybean meal diet were 25.56 kg, 11.94 kg, 46.80%, and 53.20%, respectively [1]. The average litter size and kidding interval in Kacang goats are 2.95 kids/doe/year and 217–271 days, respectively [2]. One of the breeding tracts for Kacang goats in Indonesia is located in Jambi Province. The total number of goats in this province in 2017 reached 483,990 heads, or 2.63% of the total goat population (18,410,379 heads) in Indonesia [3].

In Jambi Province, the breeding tract for Kacang goats covers lowland and highland areas. No studies on the morphometric characteristics of Kacang goats in Jambi Province have been published recently. Breed characterization in goats and sheep can be carried out based on body measurements and body indices [4-7]. Hence, morphometric characteristics can characterize goats and sheep from different populations [8-13]. The morphometric characterization of livestock is essential for planning improvement, sustainable utilization, conservation strategies, and breeding programs for a breed [14]. Morphometric characterization can be carried out using three statistical analyses, namely principal component analysis (PCA), canonical discriminant analysis (CDA), and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). These are widely used to characterize goats and sheep breeds from different populations [15-19]. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the Kacang goats in lowland and highland areas. This study’s results can be used as early information to develop a breeding program for Kacang goats in Jambi Province in the future.

Materials and Methods

Research site and animals

A total of 320 goats were collected from lowland (160 goats) and highland (160 goats) areas with sex proportions of 80 bucks and 80 does for each area. The Batanghari and Muaro Jambi Regencies represent the lowland area (100–500 m above sea level). Meanwhile, the highland area (≥1,500 m above sea level) is characterized by Kerinci Regency and Sungai Penuh city (Fig. 1). Jambi Province is located at latitude 0°45′–2°45′ S and longitude 101°10′–104°55′ E. The air temperature is approximately 22°C–27°C with an air humidity of roughly 97% and rainfall intensity of approximately 3,030 mm/years.

Figure 1.

The Kacang goat population in Jambi Province, Indonesia, in the lowland areas (Batanghari and Muaro Jambi regions) and the highland areas (Kerinci and Sungai Penuh regions).

Data collection

The body measurements were taken from animals in a standing position with a raised head. The body measurements were carried out using a measuring stick and flexible measuring tape, as per the method described by the Food and Agriculture Organization [14]. Thus, a weighing scale was used to obtain the body weight (BW) of the animals. Eight body measurements, i.e., body length (BL), withers height (WH), chest girth (CG), chest depth (CD), shoulder width (SW), rump height (RH), rump width (RW), and cannon circumference (CC) were carried out. BL was measured from the point of the shoulder to the pin bone. WH was measured from the surface of the platform on which the animal stood to the withers of the animal. CG was measured as the body circumference just behind the forelegs. CD was measured from the most dorsal point of the withers to the ventral surface of the sternum. SW was measured as the distance from the left to right shoulder blade. RH was measured from the surface of a platform to the rump. RW was measured as the distance between two tuber coxae. The scheme for body measurements in Kacang goats is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

The body measurement scheme for Kacang goats consisting of BL (a), WH (b), CG (c), CD (d), RH (e), CC (f), chest width (g) and RW (h).

Moreover, body indices were calculated in this study according to Birteeb et al. [20], Khargharia et al. [21], and Boujenane et al. [22] as follows: Length index (LI) = [BL/WH]×100; Thoracic index (TI) = [SW/CD] × 100; Depth index (DI) = [CD/WH] × 100; Height index (HI) = [WH/RH] × 100; Thoracic development (TD) = [CG/WH] × 100; Dactyl thorax index (DTI) = [CC/CG] × 100; Conformation index (CI) = CG2/WH; Relative cannon index (RCI) = [CC/WH] × 100; Index of body weight (IBW) = [BW/WH] × 100; Body index (BI) = [BL/CG] × 100; Proportionality (Pr) = [WH/BL] × 100; and Area index (AI) = WH×BL.

According to the BI value, the body of goats can be described using three categories: short or brevigline animals (BI < 85), medigline animals (86 < BI < 88) and longline animals (BI > 88). Hence, according to their DTI values, the bodies of goats can be classified into four categories: light animals (DTI < 10.5), intermediary animals (10.6 < DTI < 10.8), light meat-type animals (10.9 < DTI < 11.0), and massive meat-type animals (DTI > 11.0) [4,23].

Statistical analysis

Descriptive statistics for the body measurements and body indices were carried out using Microsoft Office Excel 2007 to describe the mean and standard deviation. Meanwhile, Pearson’s coefficient of correlation (r) value between BW and somebody measurements was carried out using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 16.0 software. Therefore, morpho-structural characterization of goats was conducted using three statistical analyses: PCA, canonical discriminant analysis (CDA), and HCA using the same software. In the PCA, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measures sampling adequacy, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity and communality was computed to obtain the principal component (PC) factor. The PC factor with a KMO greater than 0.50 was the main factor explaining the animal morpho-structure. The orthogonal rotation method’s varimax criterion was employed in the rotation of the factor matrix to enhance the factor analysis’s interpretability. In the CDA, Mahalanobis distance (D2), tolerance (T), Wilk’s lambda (λ) values, and the linear discriminant function were computed to obtain the discriminating variable for the Kacang goats in the two different areas. Here, the CDA was applied with the backward-stepping automatic elimination method for the variables, with F-value entry = 3.84 and F-value removal = 2.71. The T-value (0–1) was computed to detect the correlation among the discriminant function variables. Suppose a variable is positively correlated with one or more of the others. In that case, the - value is minimal, and the resulting estimates of the discriminant function coefficients may be unstable. HCA was used to cluster the Kacang goats from different populations. In this study, the HCA was conducted using combination data (BW, body measurements, and body indices) with the nearest-neighbor method, the Euclidean distance measure, and the Z score’s transformed value.

Results

Animal performance

The average BW, body measurements, and body indices of the Kacang goats are presented in Table 1. The average BW in Kacang goats in the highland area was higher than that in the lowland area, and the difference was significant (p < 0.05). Thus, the average BI and DTI values in the studied goats were approximately 89.33 (longline animals) and 10.67 (intermediary animals), respectively (lowland area) and 89.68 (longline animals) and 12.03 (massive meat-type animals), respectively (highland area). The r-value between BW and each body measurement in this study ranged from 0.60 to 0.93, as presented in Table 2. Meanwhile, a high r-value (0.60 < r < 0.80) was shown between BW and DTI (0.72), RCI (0.70), and AI (0.84) for Kacang goats in the lowland area. BW had a high r-value with CI (0.72), AI (0.86), and IBW (0.97) for Kacang goats in the highland area (Table 3).

Table 1.

The average morphostuctural characteristics of Kacang goats in two different areas.

Parameter	Lowland				Highland
	Buck (80)	Doe (80)	Total (160)		Buck (80)	Doe (80)	Total (160)
BW (kg)	18.05 ± 2.82	16.35 ± 2.59	17.20 ± 2.83a		19.95 ± 2.90	17.34 ± 3.63	18.64 ± 3.53b
Body measurements (cm)
BL	51.93 ± 3.29	50.23 ± 2.54	51.08 ± 3.05		53.03 ± 3.01	51.31 ± 2.11	52.17 ± 2.73
WH	50.58 ± 2.52	48.45 ± 2.17	49.52 ± 2.58		52.07 ± 2.79	49.63 ± 2.22	50.85 ± 2.79
CG	58.09 ± 2.51	56.28 ± 2.46	57.18 ± 2.64		59.08 ± 2.48	57.28 ± 2.58	58.18 ± 2.68
CD	23.42 ± 2.79	20.63 ± 3.06	22.02 ± 3.24		24.42 ± 2.56	22.25 ± 2.99	23.34 ± 2.99
SW	12.14 ± 2.29	10.12 ± 2.71	11.13 ± 2.70		13.58 ± 2.26	11.27 ± 2.42	12.42 ± 2.60
RH	52.61 ± 2.12	50.12 ± 2.61	51.36 ± 2.68		53.92 ± 2.26	52.06 ± 2.94	52.99 ± 2.78
RW	11.73 ± 1.73	10.48 ± 2.54	11.10 ± 2.26		12.83 ± 2.21	11.27 ± 2.33	12.05 ± 2.40
CC	6.80 ± 1.96	5.52 ± 2.44	6.15 ± 2.30		7.90 ± 1.73	6.19 ± 2.51	7.05 ± 2.31
Body indices
LI	102.65 ± 3.76	103.77 ± 4.90	103.21 ± 4.48		101.89 ± 4.09	103.49 ± 4.48	102.59 ± 4.34
TI	51.55 ± 4.93	49.51 ± 12.33	50.53 ± 9.46		55.37 ± 5.13	51.08 ± 10.99	53.22 ± 8.77
DI	46.20 ± 4.02	42.51 ± 5.53	44.36 ± 5.14		46.85 ± 3.61	44.80 ± 5.54	45.83 ± 4.75
HI	96.14 ± 2.39	96.77 ± 3.55	96.45 ± 3.07		96.58 ± 3.18	95.46 ± 3.86	96.02 ± 3.56
TD	114.92 ± 3.01	116.29 ± 5.08	115.60 ± 4.26		113.57 ± 3.88	115.46 ± 3.44	114.52 ± 3.77
DTI	11.62 ± 2.61	9.71 ± 3.94	10.67 ± 3.55		13.31 ± 2.46	10.75 ± 4.15	12.03 ± 3.63
CI	66.76 ± 3.62	65.50 ± 4.96	66.13 ± 4.35		67.10 ± 3.84	66.17 ± 4.10	66.63 ± 3.97
RCI	13.34 ± 2.97	11.32 ± 4.80	12.33 ± 4.17		15.10 ± 2.67	12.42 ± 4.85	13.76 ± 4.11
IBW	35.52 ± 4.09	33.66 ± 4.57	34.59 ± 4.44		38.17 ± 4.23	34.76 ± 6.22	36.47 ± 5.56
BI	89.34 ± 2.76	89.32 ± 4.30		89.33 ± 3.63	89.72 ± 2.58	89.63 ± 2.89	89.68 ± 2.72
Pr	97.55 ± 3.65	96.59 ± 4.68		97.07 ± 4.30	98.32 ± 4.36	96.81 ± 4.22	97.56 ± 4.33
AI	2,633.54 ± 273.16	2,436.09 ± 197.11		2,534.81 ± 260.13	2,767.12 ± 275.20	2,548.77 ± 189.85	2,657.94 ± 259.58

Different letters (a, b) in the same rows indicate significant differences (p < 0.05).

Table 2.

Pearson’s correlations between BW and body measurements of Kacang goats in lowland (above diagonal) and highland (below diagonal) areas.

Body measurements	BW	BL	WH	CG	CD	SW	RH	RW	CC
BW	–	0.76	0.79	0.81	0.75	0.77	0.76	0.68	0.76
BL	0.78	–	0.70	0.75	0.71	0.62	0.66	0.57	0.53
WH	0.79	0.67	–	0.72	0.71	0.66	0.81	0.65	0.57
CG	0.93	0.82	0.79	–	0.81	0.73	0.73	0.67	0.68
CD	0.76	0.63	0.63	0.72	–	0.66	0.71	0.71	0.62
SW	0.74	0.66	0.71	0.76	0.67	–	0.71	0.67	0.76
RH (HH)	0.84	0.75	0.76	0.91	0.66	0.75	–	0.61	0.57
RW	0.70	0.62	0.66	0.74	0.69	0.68	0.68	–	0.67
CC	0.56	0.53	0.58	0.61	0.51	0.64	0.59	0.61	–

Table 3.

Pearson’s correlations between BW and body indices of Kacang goats in lowland (above diagonal) and highland (below diagonal) areas.

Body indices	BW	LI	TI	DI	HI	TD	DTI	CI	RCI	IBW	BI	Pr	AI
BW	–	0.11	0.37	0.58	0.05	−0.11	0.72*	0.51	0.70*	0.97	0.20	−0.10	0.84*
LI	−0.04	–	−0.03	0.26	−0.26	0.49	0.03	0.39	0.09	0.23	0.62	−0.99	0.20
TI	0.35	−0.07	–	−0.13	−0.09	−0.03	0.43	0.17	0.43	0.37	−0.01	0.05	0.25
DI	0.51	0.20	−0.20	–	−0.15	0.21	0.46	0.60	0.49	0.56	0.08	−0.27	0.57
HI	−0.03	−0.58	−0.06	−0.25	–	−0.45	0.01	−0.27	−0.05	−0.06	0.13	0.27	0.20
TD	−0.01	0.70	−0.07	0.27	−0.81	–	0.01	0.73	0.13	0.07	−0.37	−0.50	−0.29
DTI	0.46	−0.09	0.39	0.28	0.03	−0.13	–	0.43	0.99	0.69	0.03	−0.03	0.56
CI	0.72*	0.39	0.30	0.51	−0.54	0.63	0.32	–	0.52	0.57	−0.23	−0.41	0.40
RCI	0.45	−0.01	0.39	0.30	−0.07	−0.01	0.99	0.39	–	0.70	−0.01	−0.10	0.52
IBW	0.97*	0.11	0.29	0.55	−0.18	0.19	0.37	0.78	0.39	−	0.10	−0.23	0.71
BI	−0.04	0.65	−0.01	−0.01	0.06	−0.09	0.02	−0.12	−0.01	−0.04	−	−0.61	0.47
Pr	0.04	−0.99	0.06	−0.20	0.58	−0.69	0.08	−0.38	0.01	−0.11	−0.65	–	−0.20
AI

AI = Area.

indicates significant difference.

Principal component analysis

The PCA of the body measurements of Kacang goats revealed one principal component (PC1), as presented in Table 4. Hence, all body measurements included the first component explaining Kacang goat morphometrics in lowland and highland areas. PC1 in this study explained approximately 73% of the total variance in Kacang goat morphometry in lowland and highland areas.

Table 4.

Eigenvalues, total variance, cumulative, commonalities, KMO measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett’s test of sphericity in the body measurements of Kacang goats in two different areas.

Body measurements	Lowland		Highland
	PC1	Com.	PC1	Com.
BW	0.92	0.85	0.93	0.86
BL	0.82	0.67	0.84	0.71
WH	0.86	0.74	0.86	0.73
CG	0.89	0.81	0.95	0.90
CD	0.87	0.76	0.81	0.66
SW	0.85	0.73	0.86	0.74
RH	0.86	0.73	0.91	0.82
RW	0.81	0.65	0.83	0.68
CC	0.80	0.64	0.72	0.52
Eigenvalues	6.57	–	6.61	–
Variance (%)	73.0	–	73.5	–
Cumulative (%)	73.0	–	73.5	–
KMO	0.93		0.94
Bartlett’s test	**		**

Com.: communality.

indicates very significant difference.

Five body indices, DI, DTI, RCI, IBW, and Pr, were included in PC1 for the Kacang goats in the lowland area. Meanwhile, HI and TD were included in PC1 for the Kacang goats in the highland area. The component plots for the body indices of Kacang goats in lowland and highland regions are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3.

The component plot of body indices in Kacang goats based on a rotated component matrix.

Canonical discriminant analysis

The CDA for body measurements and body indices of Kacang goats in this study are presented in Table 6. This study’s goat characterization revealed a low rc value, i.e., 0.29 (body measurements) and 0.30 (body indices). RH was selected as the describing variable for Kacang goats, with D2 = 0.36 and Wilk’s λ = 0.92. Hence, three body indices, AI, IBW, and TD, were selected as the describing variables in Kacang goats, with D2 = 0.28 and Wilk’s λ = 0.93. Moreover, approximately 59.40% of Kacang goats in the lowland area and 60.60% of Kacang goats in the highland area can be characterized based on body measurements (Table 7). Meanwhile, approximately 48.80% of Kacang goats in the lowland area and 61.20% of Kacang goats in the highland area can be characterized by body indices. The canonical plots of the body measurements and body indices of Kacang goats are shown in Figure 4.

Table 6.

Factors selected by stepwise discriminant analysis to characterize Kacang goats in two different areas.

Factor/Step	Variables entered	Tolerance	Fremove	D2	Wilk’s λ
Body measurements (rc = 0.29)
Step 1	RH	1.00	28.76	0.36	0.92
Body indices (rc = 0.30)
Step 1	AI	0.91	13.14	0.22	0.95
Step 2	IBW	0.61	11.41	0.24	0.94
Step 3	TD	0.57	8.91	0.28	0.93

D2 = Mahalanobis distance; rc = canonical correlation.

Table 7.

Percentage (%) of individual classification per breed based on discriminant analysis.

Factors	Area	Predicted group membership (N)		Total (N)
		Lowland	Highland
Morphometric	Lowland	59.4 (95)	40.6 (65)	100.0 (160)
	Highland	39.4 (63)	60.6 (97)	100.0 (160)
Body indices	Lowland	48.8 (78)	51.2 (82)	100.0 (160)
	Highland	38.8 (62)	61.2 (98)	100.0 (160)

N: number of animals

Figure 4.

The canonical discriminant plot of the body measurements and body indices characterizing Kacang goats in two different area.

The differences in genetics (breed), location (geographical area), agro-climatic conditions, and animal management systems explain the different results for this breed characterization compared to those in previous studies.

Hierarchical cluster analysis

The HCA based on BW, body measurements and body indices revealed two population clusters. Kerinci Regency was clustered into the first cluster, and Sungai Penuh, Muaro Jambi, and Batanghari regencies were clustered into the second cluster (Fig. 5). The shortest Euclidean distance was found between the Muaro Jambi and Batanghari regencies (2.81) because both regencies are located in a similar geographic area (lowland).

Figure 5.

Dendrogram based on distances among Kacang populations based on BW, body measurements and body indices.

Discussion

Putra and Ilham [6] reported that the average BI and DTI of Kacang does in the Bone Bolango Regency of Indonesia were approximately 86.95 (medigline animals) and 10.24 (light-meat animals), respectively, which were lower than those in this study. Chacon et al. [23] reported that the body indices of Cuban Creole does were approximately 85.29 (BI), 93.19 (Pr), 47.66 (DI), 9.58 (DTI), and 97.01 (CI). Meanwhile, the body indices of Anglo-Nubian goats were approximately 81.96 (BI), 95.90 (Pr), 47.13 (DI), 9.15 (DTI), and 105.37 (CI). Khargharia et al. [21] reported that the body indices of Assam Hill does were approximately 1.14 length index (LI), 0,51 depth index (DI), 86.87 body index (BI), 88.52 proportionality (IPr), 50.88 relative depth of thorax (IPRT)), 9.82 Dactyl thorax index (DTI), 1,32 thoracic development (TD), 3355.13 area Index (AI), and 12.95 relative cannon thickness index (RCTI). The body indices BI and Pr of Kacang does in this study were higher than those of Cuban Creole, Anglo-Nubian, and Assam Hill does. However, the r-value between the BW and each body measurement in this study ranged from 0.60 to 0.93, as shown in Table 2. Meanwhile, a high r-value (0.60 < r <0.80) was shown between BW and DTI (0.72), RCI (0.70), and AI (0.84) for Kacang goats in the lowland area (Table 3). BW had a high r-value with CI (0.72) and AI (0.86) for Kacang goats in the highland area. However, a high r-value in BW–CI (0.69) and BW–AI (0.64) was reported in Kacang does in the Bone Bolango Regency [6].

The PCA of the body measurements of Kacang goats revealed PC1, as presented in Table 4. Hence, all body measurements included the first component to explain Kacang goat morphometrics in the lowland and highland areas. PC1 in this study explained approximately 73% of the total variance in Kacang goat morphometrics in the lowland and the highland regions. Pares-Casanova [24] obtained a PC1 that explained about 75% of goat morphometrics’ total variance, close to this study’s result. Okpeku et al. [25] obtained a PC1 that explained approximately 92.46% (male) and 87.00% (female) of the total variance in West African Dwarf goat morphometrics. Besides, PC1 explained 86.38% (male) and 79.89% (female) of the total variance in morphometric analysis of Red Sokoto goats [25]. Yakubu [26] obtained a PC1 that explained 73.03% of Yankasa sheep morphometrics’ total variance at 15.5 months old and was close to that in this study. The PCA of the body indices of the Kacang goats in each area revealed four PCs, as presented in Table 5. Hence, four PCs explain approximately 86% of Kacang goat morphometrics’ total variance in the lowland and highland areas. Putra and Ilham [6] obtained four PCs based on body indices that explained approximately 86.84% of Kacang doe morphometrics’ total variance in Bone Bolango Regency. However, PC1 for Kacang does in this regency consisted of CI and TD [6]. Five body indices, DI, DTI, RCI, IBW, and Pr, were included in PC1 for the Kacang goats in the lowland area. Meanwhile, HI and TD were included in PC1 for the Kacang goats in the highland area. The component plots of the body indices of Kacang goats in the lowland and highland regions are shown in Figure 3.

Table 5.

Eigenvalues, total variance, cumulative, commonalities, KMO measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett’s test of sphericity in the body indices of Kacang goats in two different areas.

Body indices	Lowland					Highland
	PC1	PC2	PC3	PC4	Com.	PC1	PC2	PC3	PC4	Com.
LI	0.10	0.91a	0.37	−0.06	0.98	0.62	−0.06	0.08	0.77a	0.99
TI	0.32	−0.03	0.05	0.87a	0.86	0.06	0.79a	−0.11	−0.05	0.65
DI	0.73a	0.13	0.18	−0.50	0.83	0.17	−0.09	0.84a	0.03	0.75
HI	0.05	−0.12	−0.67a	−0.17	0.49	−0.91a	−0.04	−0.08	−0.06	0.84
TD	0.04	0.11	0.95a	−0.12	0.94	0.96a	−0.11	0.12	0.09	0.96
DTI	0.87a	−0.07	0.01	0.30	0.86	−0.09	0.84a	0.28	−0.01	0.80
CI	0.63	0.08	0.67a	−0.15	0.88	0.59	0.33	0.67a	−0.02	0.90
RCI	0.87a	−0.05	0.13	0.28	0.86	0.02	0.84a	0.30	0.001	0.79
IBW	0.86a	0.17	0.04	0.12	0.78	0.13	0.32	0.84a	−0.02	0.82
BI	0.07	0.87a	−0.47	0.05	0.98	−0.16	0.03	−0.02	0.98a	0.99
Pr	0.80a	0.31	−0.36	−0.05	0.86	−0.33	0.52	0.68a	0.19	0.87
AI	−0.10	−0.91a	−0.38	0.07	0.98	−0.62	0.06	−0.08	−0.78a	0.99
Eigenvalues	4.43	2.62	2.11	1.14	–	4.12	3.31	1.70	1.21	–
Variance (%)	36.93	21.83	17.57	9.49	–	34.32	27.61	14.19	10.07	–
Cumulative (%)	36.93	58.76	76.33	85.82	–	34.32	61.93	76.12	86.19	–
KMO	0.55				0.51
Bartlett’s test	**				**

Com. = communality.

Main component.

A breed characterization based on morphometric traits was not accurate for characterizing Arabian goats in the northern ecotype (40.30%) of Algeria [5], Burkina Faso goats in the Sudan area (6.00%) [9], and Algerian sheep in the southern (10.00%) and central (14.75%) areas of Algeria [11]. However, the D2 value between Kacang goats in the lowland and the highland regions based on body measurements was 0.36 (Table 6). It was similar to the D2 value observed between Arbi goats in the Jerid and Nefzawa populations (0.33) of Tunisia [10]. Arandas et al. [27] found that 66.67% of Caninde does in a Pernambuco herd could be characterized by morphometric traits, similar to the Kacang goats highland area. The differences in genetics (breed), location (geographical area), agro-climatic conditions, and animal management systems can explain the different results of this breed characterization compared to those in previous studies.

The value of the genetic distance matrix between goats from different populations based on body weight and body size is presented in Table 8. The value of this genetic distance matrix is used to construct a phenogram tree as shown in Figure 5. The phenogram tree describes the genetic distance of the goat population in Muaro Jambi, Batanghari, Sungai Penuh, and Kerinci. Accortding to Figure 5, Kacang goats at Muaro Jambi and Batanghari were classified in the similar cluster with a Euclidean distance value of 2.81 (Table 8). Both regencies are located in the similar geographic area (lowlands) with similar environmental factors that affecting to the morphometric traits of goats rose at both regencies. Meanwhile, Kacang goats at Kerinci regency alone were classified in different cluster. It can be suggested that Kacang goats at this location have the different of morphometric traits rather than the other regencies.. Previous studies obtained a Euclidean distance of 1.87–8.87 among Pramenka sheep from six different populations in Slovenia [7] and of 2.34–7.77 among Black Creole goats from seven diverse communities in Mexico [13]. The differences in animal management, selection, geographical area, agro-climatic conditions, and natural resources can be affected by phenotypic variation among breeds from different populations. Moreover, the low rc value between Kacang goats raised in lowland and highland areas can be caused by no environmental effects on goat’s morphometrics. Hence, both areas’ ecological impact might be affected by animals’ vital signs and reproductive traits. On the contrary, Utomo [28] reported that the reproductive traits of Ettawa does raise in lowland and highland areas were not different significantly. In the future, studying to investigate the environmental effect in lowland and the highland regions on vital signs and reproductive traits of Kacang is essential for improving the management systems.

Table 8.

Genetic distance (Centimorgan cM) between Kacang goats from different populations based on BW, body measurements, and body indices.

Population	Kerinci	Sungai Penuh	Muaro Jambi	Batanghari
Kerinci	0.00	7.46	8.21	8.94
Sungai Penuh	–	0.00	4.79	4.27
Muaro Jambi	–	–	0.00	2.81
Batanghari	–	–	–	0.00

Conclusion

Eight body measurements, BL, WH, CG, CD, SW, RH, RW, and CC, in this study were included in the first component explaining Kacang goat morphometric traits in lowland and highland areas. Moreover, these body measurements had a high r-value with the BW trait (0.68–0.81). Unfortunately, this study’s rc value was low (± 0.30), suggesting that the breed characterization based on body measurements and body indices was not accurate for the studied goats in the lowland and highland areas. However, the HCA with combination data revealed that Kacang goats were separated into different clusters. Hence, a genetic study (DNA analysis) of Kacang goats, mainly those in Kerinci Regency, is essential for developing these goats into a Kerinci goat breed in the future.