Seventy-seven male kids were used to compare growth performance of Spanish (S, n=26), BoerxAngora (BA, n=21) and BoerxSpanish (BS, n=30) kids during the preweaning period. All kids were removed from does 3 days postpartum, moved indoors and randomly allocated to individual cages. Kids received goat milk fortified with milk replacer for approximately 1 week followed by 600ml of milk replacer (23...

Several Canadian producers have implemented an inexpensive free-access feeding system modeled on Finnish guidelines,18 using formic acid as a milk preservative. The system mimics natural suckling and permits group social behavior. It allows for accelerated growth and changes labor requirements for calf rearing. Anecdotally, producers report less clinical cases of diarrhea and use of drugs for r...

OBJECTIVE This experiment was designed to evaluate the effect of supplementation with soybean or canola oil on milk production and the composition of long chain fatty acids as well as weight changes in the goats and their kids. METHODS Thirty nine mulitparous crossed Alpine×Nubian goats (initial body weight [BW] 43.5±1.7 kg) from the day of parturition were assigned to the treatments: grazing...

Investigations were conducted on one group of White Improved (WI) kids and three groups of WI crossbred kids with various share of the Boer (B) genes: 1/4B3/4WI, 1/2B1/2WI and 3/4B1/4WI. Eighteen male kids were included in each group. Up to 20 kg life weight the kids of all groups had free access to their dams’ milk and to solid feed from day 14 of life. Crossbreds with 25, 50 and 75% of the B ...

The aim of this study was to analyze the economic viability of producing dairy goat kids fed liquid diets in alternative of goat milk and slaughtered at two different ages. Forty-eight male newborn Saanen and Alpine kids were selected and allocated to four groups using a completely randomized factorial design: goat milk (GM), cow milk (CM), commercial milk replacer (CMR) and fermented cow colos...

The aim of this study was to define breeding goals and determine the suitable selection index in Rayeni cashmere goat using simulated data. To select animals for increased quantity of meat, milk and cashmere produced, body weight of the doe (BWD), milk weight (MW), cashmere weight (CW), weight of kids for sale (WK) and number of kids for sale per doe (NK) was used as selection criteria. Four se...

A total of 60 twin-goat kids (30 male and 30 female) of the Canary Island Majorera dairy breed were used in 2 experiments to evaluate 2 types of electronic identification mini-boluses and their effects on rearing performances and reticulorumen development. Electronic identification mini-boluses were cylindrical and made of ceramic materials (B1, 9.0 g and 38.5 × 9.5 mm; B2, 16.3 g and 42.2 × 12...