Tropentag, September 14 - 16, 2010 in Zurich "World Food System – A Contribution from Europe"

The Effect of Forage Based Diets on Milk Composition, Lactation Stages and Growth Rate Kids from West African Dwarf (WAD) Goat in South West Nigeria

¹National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology, Ibadan, Angr, Nigeria
²University of Ibadan, Animal Science, Nigeria

Abstract

In Nigeria, there are three dominant breeds of goat in the hand of smallholder farmers. These are Sahel, red sokoto and West African dwarf (WAD) but the most common breed in southern part of Nigeria is WAD goat. The study, therefore, investigated effects of five different forages using Panicum maximum as control on milk composition, stages of lactation and growth rate of WAD goat kids. Twenty one (21) WAD does with their kids were randomly allotted to different forages in a complete randomised design. The forages are: Albizia odoratissima, Gliricidia sepium, Leuceana leucocephalla, Spondias mombin, Ficus thonningii and Panicum maximum as control. The forages are available all year round suggesting their utilisation as dry season feed for ruminants. The forages except P. maximum contained, per kg of dry matter (DM) crude protein (CP, 14-24 %), Ash (5-9 %) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF, 45-60 %).Animal were supplemented with compounded ration at 2% body weight.

The lactation length was 12 weeks (84days). The effect of diet on milk composition was significant (p<0.03) and the milk content of crude protein (CP, 3.51 to 4.16%) with CP of milk under the treatment Albizia odoratissima recording the highest value (3.82%), milk fat (3.51 to 4.16%), solid-not-fat (11.73 to 13.30%) and total ash (0.76-0.96%) . Also, the contents of milk protein (3.00 to 3.80%), fat (3.47 to 3.88%) solid not fat (11.31 to13.24%), lactose (4.20 to 4.53%) total ash (0.64 to 0.82%), and total solid (14.83 to 17.12%) varied significantly (p<0.05) among the different stages of lactation. In contrast, the pH of milk (6.75 to 6.99) did not vary among the treatments. The weaning weight of kids at twelve weeks of age was found to be significant (p<0.005). The value ranged between 3.73 and 5.47kg. The study revealed that forage quality had effect on milk composition which then influenced weaning weight of kids run with their dams that fed on the forages.

It is therefore suggested that browse plants or concentrate supplementation should be encouraged for low quality pasture like guinea grass.

Keywords: Forages, milk composition, WAD goat, weaning weight

Contact Address: Dupe Olufunke Ogunbosoye, National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology, Ibadan, Angr, Nacgrab< Moor Plantation, +234 Ibadan, Nigeria, e-mail: bosoyemeyahoo.com