Economics of Physical Attributes Influencing Cattle Prices in Ngalzarma Livestock Markets, Yobe State

Abstract: This study examined the physical attributes influence cattle prices in Ngalzarma livestock market in Yobe State, Ngalzarma cattle market in Fune Local Government was purposively selected based on high concentration of cattle and cattle marketers. A total of one hundred thirty (130) Buyers were selected using systematic sampling by truncation on weekly basis for period of 26 weeks. Descriptive statistics, ginni co-efficient and multiple regressions was employed to analyze the collected data. The result of the study revealed that 100% of the respondents were male, 39.7% of cattle buyers were within age group of 31-40years and 96.7% were found to be married. The respondents (52.3%) were small buyers category, 24.9% medium and 22.8% were large scale buyers. Greater percentage of the cattle marketers (63.3%) preferred Red Bororo, 29.2% White Fulani and 7.4% Sokoto Gudali. The Ginni co-efficient model shows that the markets structure was competitive with low Ginni co-efficient of 0.507. The regression results indicated that colour of the ear, shape of the cattle face and type of horn were the factors that influenced the buyer's preference. Hedonic regression generally showed that female cattle, big carcass size and height were found to be statistically significant (P < 0.05), (P < 0.001) and (P < 0.001) respectively with positive coefficient. 1t was therefore recommended that research efforts should target the characteristics of these cattle that buyers are sensitive to so as to enhance profitability production and marketing.