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ARTIFICIAL METHODS OF REARING GOATS
By: Dr Paul Greenwood, Senior Research Scientist, Armidale |
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Introduction Artificial methods of rearing goat kids are widely used overseas, and are gaining acceptance in Australia. They have a number of advantages over natural methods, particularly in more intensive commercial goat-breeding operations. This Agfact sets out how to use these methods.
When to use artificial rearing
Housing, shelter, yards and paddocks If kids are housed together in a suitable shed, additional heat may not be necessary. However, in cold conditions, piglet heaters or infra-red heating lamps are suitable. Do not let the temperature in goat housing fall below 5°C. Kids can be reared on an elevated platform of, for example, woven mesh, expanded metal or wooden slats, or on the ground on earth or concrete, in which case clean straw freshened up each day should be provided. Draughts are more likely with open floors. If you are housing goats until weaning, allow at least 0.6 m2 of solid floor or 0.2 m2 of open floor per kid. The ideal size of kid groups is about 15, with no more than 25 in a pen. If there is a large variation in the size and weight of goats of similar ages, group goats of similar size together, especially if you have limited amounts of feed, to make sure they can all get to the feed. Figure 1. The situation shown in this illustration should be avoided. Kids in the same feeding group should be of uniform size.
Housing layout varies according to needs, with larger numbers needing more sophisticated arrangements. For example, if you want to maximise the numbers you feed at one time, you can locate automatic feeders within a circle of pens--in Europe, 100 to 200 per unit may be fed in this way. Figure 2 (diagrams page) shows the layout of a large-scale rearing facility. This artificial rearing shed, with six pens, has the capacity to hold 100 head. After their first week of life, kids can be artificially reared outside if the climate is not too severe. Make sure there is shade during summer, and shelter for when it is cold and wet. Feeding equipment and shelter located in the paddock or yard should be moved around to prevent damage to the pasture and fouling of the adjacent area. A mesh feeding platform can be useful in such cases.
Care of the doe at kidding A few days before kidding, move your does into a kidding paddock where you can observe them easily. A well-sheltered paddock that is safe from predators, or goat housing near the house or dairy, is ideal. Keep in mind that for a doe to produce well during lactation, she needs to be fed adequately before kidding so that she is in good body condition when she kids.
Care of the newborn kid Kids can become infected with diseases via the navel. You can reduce the risk of this by dipping the navel cord in a solution of iodine and water (0.5 per cent iodine) as soon as possible after birth (see Health, and disease prevention).
Feeding methods and feeding equipment
Concentrate feeders, hay racks and a clean water supply are also required for successful rearing.
Bottle feeding Make sure your bottles, open vessels and feed-mixing equipment are thoroughly washed and sterilised after feeding. Scrub your equipment thoroughly with detergent, sanitise it with a household or dairy bleach, then store it in a way that prevents recontamination. As an extra precaution, sanitise equipment before use.
Open vessel feeding It is important to supervise feeding to make sure that smaller kids drink enough and that goats do not overfeed. Overfeeding can cause swelling of the abomasum (fourth stomach)--see Figure 11 in the diagrams page. If you leave milk in open troughs or buckets it can quickly become fouled, so make sure you wash any troughs or buckets properly and sanitise them after use. If milk is allowed to remain on kids’ mouths after drinking, milk sores can develop. You can prevent this by wiping their mouths with clean absorbent paper towels. Figure 3. Small groups of kids can be reared using a simple trough feeder
Self-feed teat feeders Teats located at the top of the milk container are fitted to tubes that end at the bottom of the container. With this arrangement, one-way valves can be fitted to help small kids to feed. Teats set at the base of a milk container are filled by gravity. Blind teats, with a self-sealing vertical slit in the end, can be located at the base of the milk container or in a teat bar. (See figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.) Blind teats with a slit are particularly good for training kids because they release milk as soon as the kid starts sucking; however, they can result in milk loss if they are damaged. Tearing of teats occurs most often in feeding systems that allow continuous access (ad libitum systems). Tearing can be minimised by placing a baffle around or between the teats (Figure 5) to prevent kids chewing with their back teeth. Milk containers for small-scale teat feeders range from simple bucket feeders (Figure 4) to insulated cold-milk units (Figure 7). Electronic automatic continuous feeders (Figure 10), which mix and dispense in response to sucking, have been used for large-scale kid rearing, with good results when management has been adequate. Cold-milk recirculating systems (Figure 9) can also be used for rearing large numbers. You need to take extra care in cleaning large-scale teat feeding systems to make sure any bacterial residues are removed from milk lines. You can use techniques developed for cleaning dairy equipment for this purpose.
Water
Concentrate feeders It is better to use a design that locates the feeder outside the pen or incorporates a hood to prevent kids clambering into the food.
Hay racks Make sure that the feeders are properly constructed, as hay spillage can clutter up mesh floors and choke drainage systems.
Small-scale equipment for milk replacer rearing Some producers use a series of small buckets with single teats, and provide a set amount of feed two to three times a day. Problems with this system are the amount of washing-up required and the need to be present at each feeding. If you use a bucket or garbage bin in such a system, the advantages are quicker throughput and less washing-up. Take care to move each kid away from the feeder when it has had its share. A general rule is to gradually increase the allowance for each kid until the kid is consuming a maximum of 1.5 L per day. The feeding equipment shown in figures 4, 5 and 7 needs to be firmly held on stands that are anchored to prevent them being knocked over. The stands can incorporate baffles around the teats to prevent chewing and leakage. You can use the esky feeder (Figure 6) to rear 20 kids. In this system, milk is placed in two 5 L plastic buckets in a foam esky. A tube runs from the buckets to a short teat bar. Milk is mixed daily and half of it is put in the deep freeze. The next day, half the fresh milk is put into the buckets along with the frozen milk from the day before. However, this system has some disadvantages:
An improvement on the esky-type feeder is an insulated cold-milk feeder (Figure 7). These types of feeders reduce the labour involved. In this system, the milk is mixed once daily, and the kids are left to feed at will. The milk is placed directly into an insulated container. The container is lined to stop milk being absorbed into the foam, as this can cause bacterial problems. Self-sealing teats are recessed in funnels in the side of the feeder to protect them from being chewed, which can become a problem when the kids reach about 2 weeks of age. An insulated cold-milk feeder, with a daily filling, will handle 20 kids and will allow cold-milk feeding while kids are running at pasture.
Large-scale rearing systems A cold-milk recirculating system (Figure 8) has been used to rear 2000 lambs in trials by NSW Agriculture at Leeton during recent years. This system consists of a refrigerator with a milk container (plastic garbage bin), a delivery line, a teat bar, a return line and a small, low-speed pump to lift milk back to the refrigerator without excessive foaming. Milk is mixed in an agitator washing machine, chilled, and added to the milk in the refrigerator. Bins and lines are washed at least twice weekly. In the NSW Agriculture trials, the original teat bar was 19 mm PVC pipe with T-pieces every 10 cm to hold the teats (Figure 9(a)), with 21 teats on each line. This arrangement reared 30–50 lambs at a time, and had one to two lambs per teat, which is consistent with some overseas kid-rearing systems. The line was altered to provide a three-teat bar (with the same milk line dimensions as Figure 9(b) for each pen of 18 lambs (six lambs per teat). In Europe, three teats per 25 lambs are used with ad libitum feeding. The teat bar is placed outside the pen and protrudes through 10 cm2 mesh which acts as a baffle (Figure 9(c)). Funnel-type teat bars (Figure 9(d)) give better teat protection.
Electronic automatic feeder In trials by NSW Agriculture at Leeton, 70 lambs have been reared simultaneously using one machine; rearing higher numbers has not been attempted. These machines dispense warm milk; consequently, milk lines, teat bars and mixing bowls must be washed daily. Otherwise, the labour input is minimal, and comparable with that for the cold-milk system—about 1 hour per day for 70 young.
Kid digestion Whereas in the adult goat the rumen and the reticulum (first and second stomachs) make up about 70 per cent of stomach capacity (Figure 12), in early life the position is reversed and the omasum and abomasum (third and fourth stomachs) account for 70 per cent. The liquid diet of the young kid goes straight to the abomasum for digestion. Kids cannot digest solid feed, particularly starch, until the rumen develops. Poor-quality milk replacers with high starch levels will restrict kid growth. Poor kid performance may also result if a milk replacer with a plant protein source, such as soybean, is used during the first 2–4 weeks, or if fats in the replacer are not properly homogenised into the liquid feed. During the first 2 weeks or so, the kid starts picking at dry matter, such as hay or straw, but at first rejects it. Gradually it will swallow some of the material, with the result that:
From about the third week, the kid starts to nibble at grass, hay or concentrates if they are available, and these pass to the rumen. Rumination, or chewing the cud, follows shortly afterwards.
Colostrum It may be difficult to rear healthy, well-growing kids if they do not receive colostrum. Kids that do not receive colostrum will be less resistant to scours (diarrhoea) and other ailments later in life. If a kid is separated from the doe at birth, make sure it is fed colostrum as soon as possible, and for at least 1 day. If colostrum is not available from the kid’s mother, feed it goat, ewe or cow colostrum that has been stored. The most suitable colostrum is from animals which are starting their second or later lactations, as this colostrum contains higher levels of antibodies than does that from young females. CAEV eradication programs need a source of colostrum that is not infected, such as cow colostrum. An alternative source of colostrum is also needed if the doe cannot produce suitable colostrum because she has mastitis. Similarly, if you buy some day-old kids and you do not know if they have had colostrum or not, you can feed them stored colostrum, if only for its nutritional value. If it is necessary to feed colostrum by hand, do so in two to three feeds of 100 to 150 mL each. If no colostrum is available, whole milk is the best alternative.
Storage of colostrum
Fermented colostrum Stir the colostrum daily. It will ferment, but you can keep using it for about 3 months. Add fresh colostrum to the container as it becomes available. Mix one part hot water to three parts colostrum, and feed it at the recommended rate.
Frozen colostrum
Training kids Take the kids away from their dams, and wait for 3–4 hours before you attempt to train them. This will ensure that the kids are hungry, and they will therefore train easily. If a kid is reluctant to suck, push the back of its head down until it is in a normal sucking stance. You can assist training by placing your finger in the kid’s mouth before replacing it with the teat, stroking the kid’s muzzle and head, and positioning the kid alongside a trained kid to allow contact of muzzles of both kids. It is important for a kid to get an immediate response to its efforts when it is being trained. This can be achieved by bottle feeding, or by using self-sealing teats on the base of a milk container. Teats attached to tubes entering the top of a milk container increase the difficulty of training kids, as milk takes too long to reach the teat. The temperature of the milk fed during training should be the same as for the next milk-rearing period (see Milk feeding temperature and feeding frequency). During training, and at least for the first week, kids must be kept warm. In cold weather or if kids are weak, it may be preferable to feed kids warm milk during training.
Milk feeds Milk substitutes prepared for calves and lambs normally contain 24–26 per cent protein and 14–24 per cent fat. Milk substitutes for lambs contain more fat to bring them up to the higher fat level of ewe milk. Overseas research into kid rearing suggests that it is advisable not to exceed 30 per cent fat in the milk replacer, and, in the first few weeks of feeding, for the fat not to exceed 22 per cent. Problems may also be experienced if replacers contain too much starch, or, for the first 2–4 weeks, too much plant protein from sources such as soybean. Some feeds may also contain growth promotants, which usually increase weight gain and improve feed conversion efficiency. Also, some replacers are formulated to be offered warm; others cold. Always read the nutritional information on the label to ensure the suitability of a milk replacer formula. Differences in price between milk replacers that contain skim milk as the protein source in the replacer and those that do not may make the cheap non-skim-milk products quite attractive. Non-skim-milk-based replacers are, however, usually less digestible.
Mixing milk feeds The mixture should contain 12–16 per cent solids (dry matter) mixed in the proportions set out in Table 1.
Good results have been obtained using 15 per cent powder in the mixture. Don’t vary the feed concentration during rearing. If scouring occurs it is recommended that you give kids a glucose and electrolyte solution. These mixtures are commercially available.
Milk feeding temperature and feeding frequency
You can start cold-milk feeding from about the eighth day, or possibly earlier. Cold feeding is less labour-intensive than are other methods, but kids may reduce their milk intake initially. You can overcome this reduction in intake by feeding as much cold milk as hot milk in the first week of cold feeding. If kids are receiving only cold replacer at an early age, their intake should increase to normal levels after a short period.
With cold feeding, kids drink frequently but little. This prevents overfeeding and its associated problems of bloat, digestive upsets and scouring. Cold feeding makes it easier to maintain hygiene because it retards bacterial growth and requires less frequent washing of equipment.
In warm-milk systems where kids have warm milk available all the time and hence never become hungry, overfeeding may not occur. If, however, at any stage they are without milk, overfeeding can occur when the warm milk becomes available again.
Liquid feed intake and growth
Weaning
Weaning can be abrupt, or it can be gradual with milk being withdrawn by restricting the amount fed and the number of feeds per day.
Whichever weaning method you use, kids must be consuming, and have ready access to, high-quality solid food if they are to be weaned young. As a guide, the ration should contain a minimum of 11 MJ (megajoules) of metabolic energy and about 180 g of crude protein (18 per cent) per kilogram of dry matter, plus a mineral and vitamin mix (see Table 2). The ration may include some high-quality roughages, such as chaff, to assist rumen development. It is important for clean water to be available at all times.
(a) Levels in dry matter above 20 mg/kg may be toxic
Table 3 shows two feeding regimes used for rearing and weaning kids. In both cases the milk feed is gradually reduced in quantity and in the number of times the feeders are replenished.
Table 3. Feed schedules used for kid rearing (from Mowlem 1984)
(a) Kids receive colostrum at least for the first day, and suitable solid feed ad libitum from 2 weeks of age.
Hobby goat keepers tend to feed milk to kids for long periods, sometimes until the kids are 6–9 months old. This is an enormous and unnecessary expense for a species that starts ruminating at 2–3 weeks. Most other ruminants are weaned at 5–6 weeks when being reared on milk replacer diets.
Solid feed and supplementation
Usually both hay and concentrates are provided ad libitum, although, particularly with concentrates, you should try to match the allowance with the kids’ appetites to reduce waste.
As mentioned earlier, make sure that the feeders are properly constructed, as hay spillage can clutter up mesh floors and choke drainage systems.
Milk replacers may have low levels of fat-soluble vitamins, so an injection of vitamins A, D and E at birth, and administration of vitamin drops (according to label directions), will enhance performance. Vaccinate kids against clostridial diseases such as enterotoxaemia and tetanus, and you can include a coccidiostat in the solid feed ration.
It is important to make sure that energy and protein supplements are kept fresh, so it is recommended that you feed new material daily. You can prevent fouling by putting the supplement and water trough outside the pens, which will force the kids to reach through to feed and drink.
Early weaning
If you have larger numbers, you may prefer to mix your own supplement. An example of a suitable ration to use is cracked grain (55 per cent), soybean meal (25 per cent), wheat bran or hammermilled hay (18.5 per cent), salt (0.5 per cent) and a mineral and vitamin mix (see Table 2). This should provide 18–20 per cent protein. Two weeks after weaning, reduce the soybean meal to 20 per cent, increase the hay to 25 per cent, and add 0.5 per cent limestone.
Post-weaning
You can mate replacement does as early as 7 months if they are big enough (35–40 kg). Slower growth until the first mating is not likely to adversely affect their performance, and therefore you can use less expensive feeding regimes to rear replacements that are mated later. Whichever rearing regime you use, make sure you avoid overfatness at kidding, as this can cause kidding problems and may have an adverse effect on milk production.
The growth rates of replacement does can be altered after weaning by adjusting the quality and availability of the concentrate and forage components of their diet.
An increase in hay consumption does not compensate for the reduction in energy intake if the concentrate allowance decreases; therefore, daily weight gains are reduced.
It is recognised that kids which continue to be housed after weaning grow faster than those reared on pasture. This lower growth rate of animals on pasture is attributed to the relatively low energy intake of goats at pasture and to problems caused by internal parasites. Management of young goats at pasture, while more viable economically, should take these factors into account.
Kids reared with access to high-quality ‘clean’ pasture (that is, pasture with no parasitic larvae) can be weaned successfully at an early age. When weaned onto ordinary pasture, they will consume more pasture than will sucking kids, and consequently they will also consume more parasitic larvae.
Finishing kids for meat
Health, and disease prevention
Marked change from the normal is an early sign of sickness. Disease usually causes increases in body temperature and in respiration and pulse rates, and changes in the appearance and behaviour of kids.
Disease prevention
Kids require warm, dry conditions in cold or wet weather, and adequate shade in hot weather. If kids are housed in sheds, these must be warm, dry and well ventilated. Raised slatted floors—either made of wood or of woven wire mesh—are recommended. Avoid overcrowding, as it increases the risk of infection and the spread of disease.
Small permanent kid pens accumulate a high concentration of infectious organisms, particularly when they are occupied for long periods, so rotation of kid pens is recommended. Good drainage and proper disinfection of pens between batches of kids are essential.
Poor nutrition, inadequate shelter, poor hygiene, and internal or external parasites all greatly increase susceptibility to disease.
Dirty feeding utensils and permanent feeding sites can spread infection. Make sure that feeding equipment and areas are thoroughly washed and disinfected after each use (for example, a 10 per cent watery solution of ammonia can be used to sanitise the housing facility). If you are feeding kids using buckets on the ground, use a different feeding area each day.
Remember, it is most important for kids to get colostrum for at least the first 24 hours and preferably the first 2 days of life, so that they can acquire the immunities it confers.
Many diseases can be controlled and treated if they are diagnosed early and proper treatment starts at once. A correct diagnosis is most important, so get veterinary advice as soon as you suspect any disease.
Isolate any sick kids from the main group. Nursing care, good shelter and dry bedding are essential.
Vaccinate against clostridial diseases at 4–10 weeks, and again 1 month later.
Disease can be introduced with stock brought in from outside. If other kids are brought onto the farm they should be segregated until you are sure they are healthy and unlikely to spread infection to other animals. (See Agfact A7.9.13 Goat health — keeping the herd disease-free, currently available only in print form from the NSW Agriculture Bookshop.)
Scours
The importance of correct diagnosis is emphasised by the fact that, although Escherichia coli is the most common cause, scouring can result from any one of the following, or a combination:
If scouring occurs and proper treatment is not given within 24 hours, losses are likely to occur. Kids that scour should be isolated in order to minimise the risk of spreading disease to other kids. Again, glucose and electrolytes should be used to prevent dehydration. Such mixtures are available commercially.
Summary
Further information |
About the author: References: Morand-Fehr, P. (1981). Growth. In Goat Production (Editor C. Gall). Academic Press, London, UK. Mowlem (1984). Artificial Rearing of Kids. Goat Veterinary Society Journal, 5:25–30.
Acknowledgments: The information contained in this web page is based on knowledge and understanding at the time of writing (29 November 2000). However, because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that information upon which they rely is up to date and to check currency of the information with the appropriate officer of New South Wales Department of Agriculture or the user’s independent adviser. |
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