Feeding of Concentrate and Green Fodder at an Early Age and its Effects on Growth Rate in Goat Kids

A study was conducted on nine beetle goat kids, randomly divided into three groups of three in each group on the basis of same age and weight to evaluate the effect of feeding concentrate feed along with green fodder at different stages of age on the growth rate. Maize was used as green fodder and commercially available readymade feed as a concentrate feed for feeding of beetle goat kids. Three treatments viz., T1(concentrate feed+ dam milk + maize green fodder after 60d), T2(concentrate feed +dam milk + maize green fodder after 30d and T3(concentrate feed + dam milk + maize green fodder after 15d) of age were evaluated. Feeding was started at 4^th day of age in all the experimental groups. During entire period of experiment, measured quantity of feed was provided to each animal every morning and the left over was weighted in next morning to assess daily feed consumption. The body weights were measured individually at the beginning and at fortnightly intervals during the experimental period. The overall body weight changes and average daily body weight gain in goat kids were higher in group T1 followed by group T2 and group T3. It was concluded that feeding of green fodder after weaning at 60d of age improved body weights and meat value for commercial purpose.