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Turkish Journal of Veterinary & Animal Sciences

DOI

10.3906/vet-0909-108

Abstract

Among 1608 Sahel goat bucks presented for slaughter at the Maiduguri Metropolitan abattoir in March-April 2007, 65.7% had plain white or black-white coat colour, and 91.2% were aged >1.5-3.0 years with mean body weights of 15.6-25.7 kg. Twenty-two (1.4%) of the mature bucks, aged 1.9 ± 0.3 years and weighing 20.6 ± 3.5 kg, had bilateral small hypoplastic testes that were symmetric, approximately 7 times smaller in weight, with a 2-fold reduction in longitudinal length and mid-circumference than the full-sized normal testes. The epididymes were also reduced in size as the testes. Histologically, the seminiferous tubules and caudal epididymides showed no evidence of spermatogenesis and the basement membranes of the seminiferous tubules were smooth. This is first report of bilateral testicular hypoplasia among Sahel goats in Nigeria.

Keywords

Nigerian Sahel goats, population at slaughter in abattoir, testicular hypoplasia, testicular symmetry, small-sized testes

First Page

111

Last Page

115

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