CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Small ruminants like sheep and goats are important for a larger part of the tropical rural population (Tawfik, 2001). Goats are found to be the fourth largest world populated livestock (FAO 2001). Their production plays an important role as an income generating activity, particularly for smallholders, whilst being a source of animal protein to support the national programme (Soedjana, 1993). Goat excel other animals in that they are highly adaptable to different conditions and are able to fend for themselves and survive in regions where other livestock would find it difficult to survive without support from man. They are cheaper to produce because they can exist solely on forage without any nutrient supplement. They are therefore a cheap source of animal protein (Payne and Williamson, 1978).
The Kalahari Red goat is regarded as an indigenous goat breed originating from Southern Africa. Records indicate that the goats have been selected from lop-eared animals that migrated with tribes to the southern part of Africa more than 2000 years ago (Epstein, 1971). They were recognized as landrace breeds in 1998 with the establishment of a breeder’s organization. Today, these goat breeds are important meat-producing breeds in South Africa with characteristics such as adaptation to arid and semi arid savannah, good foraging abilities and excellent mothering abilities. They are regarded as “minimum care / maximum profit” breeds (Ramsay et al., 2001).
One of the traits of economic importance in goats is birth weight. It is the weight of kids taken within 24 hours after birth. It is strongly correlated with growth rate, adult size and kid viability. Birth weight and the growth of kids until weaning, together with reproduction characteristics, dressing percentage, meat quality, certain tissue share and others, are reliable indicators of the breed efficiency in the production of goat. It is known that birth weight and the growth of kids are mostly under the influence of breed (Morand – Fehr, 1981; Mourad, 1993), then feeding (Haddad, 2005), type of birth, sex (Kuchtik and Sedlackova, 2005) and season (Jimenez – Badillo et al., 2009). So, birth weight is affected by state of nutrition, parity of dam, sex of kid, season and year of kidding. It is therefore imperative to estimate the magnitude of all such factors, so that the genetic variation among animals can be used to devise effective breeding plans for their improvement.
1.1 Justification
Birth weight as an early measurable trait is of great interest because of its positive genetic correlation with further live weights (Madeli and Patro, 1984; Mavrogenis et al., 1984; Roy et al., 1989). Therefore, birth weight could be utilized to choose among populations, or as preliminary selection criteria in a given population, particularly in production systems where the kid is slaughtered at a very early age as in Northern Mexico (Montaldo et al., 1987).
Estimates of birth weight in goats range widely (Mavrogenis et al., 1984). To date no work has been performed to estimate this trait on Kalahari Red goats. Therefore, the aim of this project is to investigate various factors (environmental) that affect the birth weight of Kalahari Red goats.
1.2 Objectives
1.2.1. Broad Objective
· To determine the effects of sex, parity, season and litter size on birth weight of Kalahari Red goat
1.2.2. Specific Objectives
· To estimate the birth weight of Kalahari Red goats
· To evaluate environmental factors affecting birth weight of Kalahari Red goats which include sex, parity, season and litter size.
· To make recommendations base on research findings.