Studies on average daily gains of sirohi goats in the breeding tract

Data on 6054 Sirohi kids of 112 sires born during 2004 to 2016 in farmers ’flocks under All India Coordinated Research Project on Goat Improvement, Vallabhnagar (Udaipur) were utilized to estimate the average daily gains (ADG) at different growth stages. The overall least-squares means of ADG for 0–3(ADG1), 3–6(ADG2), 6–9(ADG3) and 9–12(ADG4) months of age were 113.66±2.15, 42.99±1.60, 41.44±2.32 and 53.55±2.08 g, respectively. Clusters and sex had significant (P<0.01) effect on average daily gains at different growth stages. Periods of birth had significant (P<0.01) effect on ADG1, ADG2 and ADG3. Season had significant (P<0.01) effect at all the stages of ADG except ADG2. Kids born in summer showed higher (P<0.01) weight gain by 3.74% for ADG1 and 20.20% for ADG4 than those born in rainy season. The kids born as multiples had significantly (P<0.01) lower weight gain than those born as single but had higher post-weaning growth rate. The kids from heavier dams at kidding attained higher (P<0.05) pre-weaning weight gain and parity of doe showed non-significant effect on ADG at all the stages. The heritability estimates ranged from 0.06±002 (ADG4) to 0.27±02.03 (ADG1). The genetic correlation between ADG1 and ADG2 was negative, which might be due to the compensatory effect on growth. All estimates of phenotypic correlations were negative, which indicates highly variable environmental conditions involved in expression of these traits. Higher heritability estimate for ADG1 indicated that males may be identified prior to 6 months of age for breeding programmes.