Performance of Boer goats at Neudamm Agricultural College farm

Abstract

Abstract provided by author

Birth weight (BW), Weaning weight (WW), Pre-weaning average daily gain (ADGW), Kidding rate (KR), Mortality rate (MR) and Litter size (LS) of Boer goats using 1 271 individual records were studied from 1999 - 2004 at Neudamm Agricultural College Farm. Data were analyzed for sex, season of birth, year of birth, birth type as fixed effects and age at weaning and dam as covariables. The overall means for birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW) and pre-weaning average daily gain (ADGW) were 4.08±0.03 Kg, 19.56±0.19 Kg and 151.07±1.76g/Kg/day,respectively. The effect of year of birth, season of birth, birth type and dam were generally significant (P 0.0001) affected birth weight (BW). It was shown that there were no significant (P0.0001) differences in birth weights between sexes at birth. The effect of sex, season of birth, type of birth and weaning age were significant (PO.0001) affected weaning weight. It is reported that there was no significant effect of dam on weaning weight of kids. It was shown that there was a significant effect (P0.0001) of sex, year of birth, birth type and weaning age on weights of kids at weaning. There was no significant effect of dam on average daily gain of kids before weaning. The average kidding rate (KR), litter size (LS) and mortality rate (MR) were 155, 3.4 kids very high and 51.2 very high, respectively. It was concluded that record keeping at Neudamm Agricultural College Farm was totally poor and the results on growth traits were in agreement with other studies. In contrast, results reported on reproductive traits were not comparable because they were not analyzed statistically