Growth of Spanish, BoerxAngora and BoerxSpanish goat kids fed milk replacer

Seventy-seven male kids were used to compare growth performance of Spanish (S, n=26), BoerxAngora (BA, n=21) and BoerxSpanish (BS, n=30) kids during the preweaning period. All kids were removed from does 3 days postpartum, moved indoors and randomly allocated to individual cages. Kids received goat milk fortified with milk replacer for approximately 1 week followed by 600ml of milk replacer (23% CP, 30% crude fat) twice daily until weaning at 8 week. At 3 week of age, all kids had ad libitum access to a commercial goat starter diet (20% CP). Feed intake was measured daily and BW gain at 2-week intervals. There were interactions (P<0.05) between breed and time or 2-week period in BW, BW gain and feed efficiency. Boer crosses (i.e., BA and BS) were heavier than S kids at 2, 6 and 8 weeks of age (P<0.05), but there were no BW differences between Boer crosses (P0.10). From Week 3-8, Boer crosses gained BW more rapidly (P=0.001) than did S kids (60, 71 and 77g/day for S, BA and BS, respectively), although BW gain of S in Week 3-4 was greater (P<0.05) than that of Boer crosses (60, 50 and 54g/day for S, BA and BS, respectively). Starter diet DM intake in Week 3-8 was greatest for BS (S versus BA and BS, P=0.05; BA versus BS, P<0.01) (23, 24 and 37g/day for S, BA and BS, respectively). The ratio of BW gain to total DM intake in Week 3-8 was greater (P=0.03) for BA and BS than for S (0.52, 0.59 and 0.58 for S, BA and BS, respectively). The incidence of scours was 17, 21 and 31% for S, BA and BS kids, respectively (P0.10). These results reflect that crossbreeding with Boer goats can improve growth of young kids and, thus, potentially increase economic returns for goat producers.