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 t he preweaning period. All kids were removed from does 3 days postpartum, mo ved indoors and randomly allocated to individual cages. Kids received goat milk fortified with milk replacer for approximately 1 week followed by 600 ml 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-wee k intervals. There were interactions (P<0.05) between breed and time or 2-w eek period in BW, BW gain and feed efficiency. Boer crosses (i.e., BA and B S) 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 (P>0.10). From Week 3-8, Boer c rosses gained BW more rapidly (P=0.001) than did S kids (60, 71 and 77 g/da y for S, BA and BS, respectively), although BW gain of S in Week 3-4 was gr eater (P<0.05) than that of Boer crosses (60, 50 and 54 g/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 37 g/day for S, BA and BS, respectively). The ratio of BW gain to total DM intake in We ek 3-8 was greater (P=0.03) for BA and BS than for S (0.52, 0.59 and 0.58 f or S, BA and BS, respectively). The incidence of scours was 17, 21 and 31% for S, BA and BS kids, respectively (P>0.10). These results reflect that cr ossbreeding with Boer goats can improve growth of young kids and, thus, pot entially increase economic returns for goat producers. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sc ience B.V. All rights reserved.