BODY CONDITION SCORE AND ADIPOSE CELL-SIZE DETERMINATION FOR IN-VIVO ASSESSMENT OF BODY-COMPOSITION AND POSTMORTEM PREDICTORS OF CARCASS COMPONENTS OF CREOLE GOATS

The purposes of this study were to estimate precision and accuracy of a scoring method of body condition for Creole does, previously fitted by Santucci et al. (1991) for mediterranean goats. Body condition score (BCS) of 5 levels (1 to 5) with halves, was mainly based upon palpation of sternal subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT). Repeatability of BCS was 88% (residual standard deviation (RSD) = 0.23 unit) and reproducibility was 80% (RSD = 0.30 unit). BCS and carcass adiposity score (CAS, Colomer-Rocher et al., 1987) appeared as the best predictors of total adipose tissue (TAT) in EBW, and total adipose tissue of carcass. Thickness of SAT and adipose cell size determination appeared to be poor indicators of total body fat and carcass fat. Residual coefficients of variation of linear regression of TAT in EBW and adipose tissue in shoulder by BCS indicated that BCS of Santucci et al. (1991) was a practical and reliable method to assess body composition of Creole does, but more than 5 score levels appeared to be unreliable. For post-mortem estimation, the weight of omental adipose tissue was found to be the best predictive variable of TAT in adult does.