Body Measurement and Gene Constitution of Feral Goats in the Madara lsland of Japan

Abstract

Measurements of 14 body parts, examinations of five morphological genetic traits and electrophores at the 33 loci coding enzymatic and non-enzymatic blood proteins of feral goats in the Madara Island, Saga Prefecture, Japan were studied. Means with the minimum and the maximum values in the parentheses of withers height and body weight were 59 (51-63) cm and 28 (21-36)kg for females, 63 (54-75)cm and 38 (20-50)kg for males, respectively. Polymorphisms in the coat color, presence or absence of wattles, beards and supernumerary teats were observed, and all the goats had horns. From the result of multi-locus electrophores, the proportion of polymorphic loci was calculated as 0.0606 and average heterozygosity per individual as 0.0163; the Nei's genetic distance between the Madara goats and Shiba goats of Japan was 0.0035. It is postulated that the Madara feral goats descended from a small number of goat individuals which immigrated from the north-east Asian continent and they hybridized with the Saanen and other dairy goat breeds.