High Level of Feeding in Addititon to Dam Milk does not Improve Pre-weaning Growth Performance and Kleiber Ratio of Boer × Central Highland Kids

In order to evaluate pre-weaning growth performance and kleiber ratio of Boer crossbred goats under different levels of supplementation an experiment based on A 2×2 ×3 factorial (2 levels of sex, 2 levels of birth type and 3 levels of feed) arrangement of treatments in completely randomized block design was conducted. Thirty six one-month old kids with an average initial body weight of 7.33±0.19 kg were randomly distributed into three dietary treatment groups. The feeding groups were: Dam milk + grazing/browsing only (T₁), dam milk+grazing/browsing+supplementary concnetrates at 1.26% of body weight (T₂), dam milk+ grazing/browsing+ supplementary concnetrates at 2.10% of body weight (T₃). In addition, birth type (single and twin) and sex (female and male) were also considered. The average milk yield of does was 282, 332 and 394 g/day for groups T₁, T₂, and T₃, respectively. Weaning weight of kids had a positive relationship (r=0.68) with milk yield of their dams. The pre-weaning average daily gain of kids was 85±9.01 g/day, 120.45±9.19 and 113.06±9.0 g/day for groups T₁, T₂, and T₃, respectively. Sex had not a considerable influence on pre-weaning growth performance and kleiber ratio of kids. However, Single born kids exhibited higher weaning weight and average daily gain (ADG) (119.52 g/day vs 92.82 g/day) than twin born kids. Weaning weight, ADG and Kleiber ratio were significantly higher (P<0.05) in concnetrtae supplemented group, however, the differences between T₁ and T₂ were non-significant. Thus it can be concluded that conncetrtae supplementation at 1.26% of body weight in addition to dam's milk would improve weaning weight and pre-weaning growth rate of kids. Feeding of supplementary concentrates higher level (2.1% of BW) during pre-weaning period yielded no futher benefits.