Feeding Black Bengal Goat under Intensive Management : Milk Feeding in Pre-weaned Kids

Despite higher fecundity, Black Bengal goat generally has lower milk production, which is often insufficient for their multiple kids. However, milk requirement of Black Bengal kids is poorly defined. Present trial was thus designed to determine the requirement and intake of milk of pre-weaned Black Bengal kids in relation to their growth rate age and sex. Thirty, one month old Black Bengal kids of either sex divided into two groups were allocated to two groups, suckling alone (T1) or suckling along with teat-bottle feeding of milk (T2). Ten kids were allocated for the T1 and 20 kids were allocated for the T2. Digestibility of milk was also determined in T2 animals. Average daily consumption of milk, milk energy and milk N were 773 and 722 g, 1,170 and 1,093 kJ/kg $W^{0.75}/d$ and 1,552 and 1,462 mg N/kg $W^{0.75}/d$, respectively. During 9 weeks trial period, male kids had significantly higher live weight (4.32 vs. 4.20 kg; p<0.01) and intake of milk (773 vs. 722 g/d; p<0.05), energy (117 vs. 1,093 kJ/kg $W^{0.75}$/d; p<0.01) and N (1,552 vs.1,462 mg/k $W^{0.75}/d$; p<0.01) than the female. Milk consumption and the corresponding milk energy and milk N intake increased linearly up to 5th week of the trial, which, then decreased quadratically up to 9th week i.e., up to the weaning. Overall milk DM intake during this period was 2.58% (range 1.5-3.0%) of live weight or about 36 g/kg $W^{0.75}/d$ (range 29-45 g/kg $W^{0.75}/d$). Pre-weaned Black Bengal kids of about 4.5 kg weight, growing at the rate of 60 g weight daily requires at least 750 g milk daily. Daily live weight gain, estimated as the regression between the live weights over time, was 60 g ($r^2$=0.99) and 55 g ($r^2$=0.99), respectively, for the male and female kids. Efficiency of milk energy utilization for weight gain ranged from 0.67 to 0.84 (mean 0.81) for the male kid and 0.75 to 0.91 (mean 0.82) for the female kids. Efficiency of milk protein utilization for weight gain ranged from 0.46 to 0.70 (mean 0.61) for the male kid and 0.51 to 0.81 (mean 0.64) for the female kids. Additional teat-bottle feeding of suckling kids had no significant effect on their growth rate (54vs. 57 g/d). Average digestibility of milk DM, OM and N was 98.85, 98.99 and 98.69%, respectively and they were slightly (p>0.05) higher in the male than the female kids. Results suggest that the requirement of energy and protein and their utilization efficiency in Black Bengal kids is not different from that of the other breeds of goat.