Abstract
It has been eighty years since the Japanese Saanen were brought into Okinawa prefecture to improve the Okinawa meat goats. Morphogenetic characters of the Okinawa meat goats were analyzed using 1, 338 goats of approximately five months of age and older belonging to eleven populations raised on the ten different islands. The frequencies of genes for colored coat (i), Wattleless (w) and horned (p) were qi=0.377, qw=0.860 and qp=0.781 respectively. The phenotype frequencies of goats with beards and with supernumerary teats were 65% and 16% respectively. At present, the migration rate of the Japanese Saanen into the Okinawa meat goats is calculated by four morphogenetic characters. The average gene flow from the Japanese Saanen into the Okinawa meat goats was 69% as a whole. The migration rate into the goats in Iheya (50%) and Yonaguni Island (52%) was lower than those in other islands respectively, while the rate in Miyako (91%), North Okinawa (89% ), South-Central Okinawa Island (77%) was high respectively. There is a noticeable polarized gap developing between the islands. The possibility of selection in coat color, wattles, horns and supernumerary teats was analyzed and the results showed that horned (p) and lacking supernumerary teat genes were positively selected.
