Morphological characterization of the Motilona goat from Norte de Santander, Colombia

Objective. To describe the morphological characteristics of the Motilona goat of Norte de Santander. Material and methods. A population of 300 individuals (266 females and 34 males) was randomly selected from 8 different farms in the department of Norte de Santander. The morphological characterization of the Motilona goat was done by means of information on 7 qualitative morphological traits and 11 quantitative traits from which 14 zoometric indexes were derived. Results. Sexual dimorphism was found to exist in the qualitative traits of horn type, ear position and number of color layers. Sexual dimorphism was also found to exist among quantitative traits such as face length, head width, withers height, rump width, shank girth and thorax girth. Conclusions. The results of this study suggest that the Motilona goat is a population with homogeneous traits and therefore future studies are required to deepen the knowledge of characterization of other morphological traits and also its productive characteristics.