Mineral and Vitamin Nutrition Laboratory, Centre of Advanced Studies in Animal Nutrition, Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar-243122, Uttar Pradesh, India
*Corresponding author e-mail: babuivri@gmail.com Assistant Professor, C. V. Sc & A.H, OUAT, Bhubaneswar (Odisha), India
Online published on 24 April, 2014.
An experiment was conducted on 24 male kids of similar age (2–3 months) and body weight (6.80±0.20 kg average) to elucidate the effect of supplemental vitamin E and/or selenium yeast on their growth rate and carcass characteristics. Kids were randomly divided into four equal groups and fed a basal diet consisting of concentrate mixture and oat straw to meet their nutrient requirement. Group I served as control (without any supplementation), whereas animals in groups II, III and IV were supplemented with 0.3 mg selenium kg−1DM as Se-yeast, 100 mg of vitamin E as DL-α-tocopheryl acetate or with both these supplements respectively. Experimental feeding lasted for 200 days, during which fortnightly body weights were recorded to assess their growth rate. Immediately after sacrificing the animals, samples were collected to study the carcass quality. Growth performance of the goats was similar between supplemented and control groups. The values of carcass parameters were similar in all the groups. Hence, supplementation of selenium yeast and vitamin E did not have any significant effect on body weight gain and carcass characteristic of goats
Goats, Selenium yeast, Vitamin E, Growth, Carcass characteristics
