Shared variability of body shape characters in adult muscovy duck

In this study body weight and six body measurements namely body length, breast circumference, thigh length, shank length , total leg length and wing length of 150 twenty weeks old male and female Nigeria indigenous muscovy duck, reared under semi intensive system, were subjected to factor analysis. The objectives of the study were to evaluate the main sources of shared variability among body shape characters, to deduce the factors that describe these characteristics and to quantify sex differences in morphometric size and shape in adult muscovy duck. Variation occur in descriptive statistics between male and female traits in favour of the male in almost all traits except shank length. Magnitude of correlation also differ between sexes. Common factor variability in the measured traits in both sexes were accounted for by two factors and are about similar. Body conformation and shape appears to be controlled by common and unique factors. Communalities ranged from 0.671 for shank length to 0.987 for body length.