Evaluation of growth, milk and manure production in Norwegian dairy goats in one highland of Tanzania 30 years after introduction

Abstract

Dairy goats have been imported into Tanzania since the 1960s to improve the milk production of Small East African (SEA) goats through crossbreeding. The SEA goats have poor genetic potential for milk. Although crossbreeding programmes started in the early 1980s, most were abandoned or failed for a number of reasons, including lack of performance records, which were important for the design and management of breeding programmes for dairy goats. This study was designed to evaluate growth, lactation, and manure yield in Norwegian Landrace (NL) goats in one rural community of Tanzania. Growth was evaluated in 211 goats by birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), weight at six (W6M) and nine months (W9M), and average daily gain (ADG). Lactation performance involved lactation milk yield (LMY), lactation length (LL), and dry off days in 251 does. Twenty four additional goats were confined to determine manure production and chemical composition in a different on-station study. The general linear model (GLM) of Statistical Analysis System (SAS) was used in data analysis. Averages for BW, WW, and adult weight (W9M) were 3.27 ± 0.04, 12.79 ± 0.09, and 28.33 ± 0.19 kg, respectively. Average LMY of 322 litres, LL 214.5 days and dry off days of 84 were obtained. Animals with ≥75% NL genetic make-up produced more milk and showed longer LL and higher ADG than those with 50%. For example, BW was 3.38 ± 0.12 kg in 75% NL animals compared with 2.56 ± 0.12 kg in 50%, whereas LMY was 324.09 ± 16.22 and 248.67 ± 16.20, respectively. The amount of manure was 311.8 g and 218 g per day for mature and grower goats, respectively. Nitrogen was the major content, comprising 1.98% of all nutrients in manure. Compared with the early years of introducing NL goats, growth and productivity of milk have increased several fold, indicating that the development of NL goats in Mgeta is positive at the moment. ______________________________________________________________________________________

Effect of Fixed Factors and Estimation of Genetic Parameters of Growth Traits for Mountain Kids

“…Variation in body weight of kids in different breeds could be attributed to the genetic content of parents due to their affect by the doe breed (20) and sire breed (40). Body weights of kids revealed in this study lay within the range (1.09-4.42 kg) for BWT, (4.8-23.0 kg) for WWT, and (7.35-26.72 kg) for WT6M which found by earlier studies conducted at several countries using different breeds (5,13,21,26,28,29,30,31,33,34,35,38,41,46,55,57). Although there was no significant effect for age of doe on all studied traits (Table 2), however with using Scheffe's test to diagnosing the significant differences between the levels of age of doe, it appears that does aging 3.5 years gives kids having significantly higher BWT, while the differences among the kids born from does with different ages were not significant in their WWT and WT6M (Table 1).…”

“…Heaviest weights of single births at later weights in comparison with twin and triple births could be related to their weights at birth (48). Earlier studies reported that single born kids are significantly heavier than twin born kids at birth (21,25,26,27,41,46,57). While other studies didn't noticed the significant effect of type of birth on birth weight of kids (13,55).…”

“…Such differences in the birth weight could be due to the characteristic that weight of cotyledons in males were 10.5 % heavier than females (47), and the differences in WWT and WT6M could be attributed to hormonal differences between them and their resultant effects on growth (43). It is generally accepted by many researchers that male kids were greater than female kids significantly in their body weights at birth (5,12,13,17,21,25,27,29,33,41,42,46,57); and at weaning (2,13,17,27,29,33,41,46); as well at 6 month old (5,24,27,29,38,41,46,55). On the other hand, many researchers showed that the differences between male and female kids were not significant at birth (26,36); and at weaning (3,5,9,28,36); as well at 6 months of age (3,28).…”

Genetic Analysis of Pre-Weaning Growth Traits of Anglo-Nubian and Baladi Kids التحلیل الوراثی لصفات النمو قبل الفطام للجدیان الأنجلونوبیان والبلدی

“…The results of analysis of variance in Table (2) show that fixed effects on the studied traits were generally significant (P<0.01or P<0.05), except for the effect of parity on WW and ADG of Baladi kids which were not significant. The results found in this study are in agreement with those reported by Alade et al 2008, Boujenane and El Hazzab 2008, Otuma and Osakwe 2008, Rashidi et al 2008, Hermiz et al 2009, Zhang et al 2009, Thiruvenkadan et al 2009, Sodiq et al 2010, Supakorn et al 2011, Mohammadi et al 2012, Andries 2013, Bedhane et al 2013, Deribe and Taye 2013, Kuthu et al 2013, Osman 2013, Bingol et al 2014, Ray et al 2015, Gupta et al 2016, Syahirah et al 2016, Bolacali et al 2017, Msalya et al 2017, and Rout et al 2018.…”

Partial Budget Analysis to Determine Additional Income of Etawa Crossbred Goat Farmers Using Breeding System in Kulon Progo Regency, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

“…Keeping dairy goats has several advantages for the farmers, such as improved income from the sales of live animals and manure. Manure has commercial value, enabling farmers to sell it and earn additional income [16]. Most of the farmer respondents also had crop farming including vegetable farming, therefore they used the manure to increase the plant production.…”