Journal of Animal Research and Nutrition

Description

Goats were the earliest ruminants domesticated around 7000 to 9000 B.C. Goats are also known as (poor man’s cow). Furthermore, they positively contribute to the rural poor's livelihood in developing countries. The number of goats has increased in the world by 67%, therefore their milk yield increased by 79% between 1991 and 2012. This reflects the goat’s importance in the future. There are many factors affecting milk yield in goats such as breed, environmental conditions, lactation length, parity, number of born kids and management policy. Damascus goats breed is considered as the most important livestock in Syria, because they have distinct production and reproduction traits. There were about 41087 heads of goats in Syria. Growth traits are one of the fundamental economic traits of goats in different production systems and useful in formulating management and selection decisions. Moreover, weight at birth is one of the first parameters that could be easily measured and critical single parameter of subsequent growth traits. This is due to the heavier kids could grow quicker and healthier than the lighter kids. Moreover, the differences in birth weight, type of birth and survival rate before weaning play critical role of genetic improvement of goats. Weaning weight and average daily gain are the most crucial economic traits for meat, because they affect significantly income of farms. In goats enterprises, weaning time of kids has a critical importance for kid growth and marketable milk productivity. Many studies indicated that weaning stress might be decreased by efficient management policies. The convenient management conditions would lead to get the greatest marketable milk without causing issues both in health and growth of the kids. Long suckling period negatively affects rumen development of kids, in addition leads to losses in marketable milk production from does (Singh-Knights and Knights, 2005).

Type of Birth Strongly Affects Reproductive Efficiency

Type of birth strongly affects reproductive efficiency and birth weight. Kids delivered from single kidding will be heavier and healthier than that delivered from twins or triplets kidding. In addition, the birth weight decreases with increasing number of kids born (Hagan et al., 2014). There might be a few studies about these traits. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of some environmental factors such as parity of doe, month of kidding, type of birth and sex of kid on birth weight, weaning weight and average daily gain of Damascus goats under intensive production system in Syria.

This result is in accordance with that of Usha and Kumaravelu (2020) on Karunkanni Kids in India and Kasap et al. (2020) on Saanen kids in Croatia. Contrary to our finding, Khandoker et al. (2018) found that BW was increased by progressing parity on Saanen goats in Malaysia. Tesema et al. (2021) found that BW of kids born from the first and fifth parities were lighter than those from other mid parities (2-4) in (Boerx Central Highland) crossbred goats in Ethiopia. The authors explained that earlier-paritygoats continue to grow till reaching adult weight and compete with their foetuses for available nutrients during pregnancy. Nevertheless, that the effect of parity of doe on WW was significant the kids delivered from first parity had lighter WW (12.84 kg) compared to other parities. This might due to development of the physiological processes with increasing parity of the dam including udder functions that leads to better maternal environment in terms of milk for the suckling kids. The obtained result agree with Al-Azawi (2011) who found that the WW was the highest for kids delivered from Shami goats at 2-3 years in Iraq. Barazandeh et al. (2012) indicated that the WW increased by increasing parity till sixth parity and return to decrease in Raini Cashmere goats in Iran. This finding conflicts with Usha and Kumaravelu (2020) and Tesema et al. (2021) who did not find any obvious effect for parity on WW of Karunkanni kids in India and (Boer x Central Highland) crossbred goats in Ethiopia. Whereas, the result in this study revealed that parity of doe was non-significantly affected the ADG. This result agreed with Usha and Kumaravelu (2020) on Karunkanni Kids in India. Conversely, Barazandeh et al. (2012) found that ADG was the lightest in the first parity compared to other parities of Raini Cashmere goats in Iran.

Effect of Month of Kidding

Result is that month of kidding had no significant effect on BW. It ranged between 4.12 kg during March and 4.25 kg during January. This result agreed with those of Birteeb and Lomo (2015) on West African Dwarf kids in Ghana, Atoui et al. (2017) on Tunisian local kids, Patel et al. (2019) on Mehsana kids in India, Anggraeni et al. (2020) on Sapera goat kids in Indonesia. On the contrary, Barazandeh et al. (2012) reported that the value of BW was greater significantly during February compared to other months on Raini Cashmere kids in Iran. Furthermore, Tesema et al. (2021) found significant effect for season of kidding on BW of (Boer x Central Highland crossbred) goats in Ethiopia, it was heavier (2.6 kg) in short rain compared to other seasons. This result is in accordance with Mnati et al. (2015) on goat kids in Iraq. Barazandeh et al. (2012) found that the WW and ADG were greatest (11.04 kg and 94.78 g/d, respectively) during January and lightest during February, (8.89 kg and 69.44 g/d, respectively), on Raini Cashmere kids in Iran. Also, Sarma et al. (2019) reported that season of kidding had a significant effect on early growth traits of mountain goat in India. Inversely, Birteeb and Lomo (2015) found that the kidding season had no significant effect on weaning weight and average daily gain on West African Dwarf goats in Ghana. Also, Anggraeni et al. (2020) did not find any significant effect formonth of kidding on WW of Sapera goat kids in Indonesia. They attributed to that the two months of kidding were still in one kidding season (end of the rainy season).