use of principal components analysis to prediction fat-tail weight trait in lori-bakhtiari sheep

the relationship between live body weight, body length, girth circumference, animal hight, upper, middle as well as lower width of fat-tail, fat-tail length, fat-tail gap length, fat-tail depth and fat-tail circumference along with fat-tail weight were determined using records of 731 loribakhtiari sheep. principal component and least square analyses were applied to solve the collinearity instability. collinearity problems as portrayed by variance inflation factors above 5 or 10 were evident in some of independent variables. results showed that the problem of collinearity in relation with fat-tail weight of 11 independent variables could be solved by using principal component analysis method. fat-tail gap length, fat-tail depth, and fat-tail circumference vs. girth circumference, and fat-tail length respectively represented the highest and the lowest coefficients regarding the estimation of fat-tail weight.