Studies on the livestock of Southern Darfur, Sudan. VII. A comparison of productivity indices for goats and sheep.

Data analysed by hand for earlier papers in this series have now been analysed by a least-squares method. Three production indices--liveweight of young weaned per breeding female, per kg of breeding female and per kg metabolic weight of female--are calculated. For different variables parity and type of birth had significant effects on one or more indices for goats while sex, parity and flock had significant effects for sheep. Goats in general had greater indices than sheep and the transhumant system was better than the sedentary but the effects were not significant for these variables.