Risk Factors for Kid Mortality in West African Dwarf Goats Under an Intensive Management System in Ghana

Abstract

Breeding records from 1997 to 2000 for West African Dwarf goats kept under an intensive management system on the National Breeding Station at Kintampo in Ghana were analysed for the effect on mortality of sex, season and type of birth, and birth weight. The pre-weaning and post-weaning mortalities were 10% (n = 390) and 23.1% (n = 351), respectively, while the overall mortality from birth up to 12 months of age was 30.8% (n = 390). The post-weaning period recorded significantly higher proportions of deaths in males, females, single-born and twins, during the rainy and dry seasons, and for kids with low or high birth weight, compared to the pre-weaning period. There was significantly higher mortality in male kids than in female kids. The odds and risks of death for male kids were about twice those for females at post-weaning and up to 1 year of age. At pre-weaning and up to 1 year of age, a higher proportion of the dead were twins. Twins had approximately 2.5 the risk of death at pre-weaning, compared to singles. Also, kids born in the rainy season had significantly higher mortality than those born in the dry season. Kids that died by the time of weaning were significantly lighter in weight at birth than those that survived. Male kids had significantly higher mean weights at birth and at weaning, but not at 12 months of age. The significance of these findings is discussed.

Some production traits of indigenous Hair goats bred under extensive conditions in Turkey. 2nd communication: viability and growth performances of kids

“…The body weight of male kids was more high than that female kids and the body weight of single kids was more high than that twin kids in all growth periods. This results are in accordance with the other reports (ODABASIOGLU and ALTIN, 1992;IKWUEGBU et al, 1995;LAES-FETTBACK and PETERS, 1995;MOURAD and ANOUS, 1998;ALEXANDRE et al, 1999;TOUKOUUROU and PETERS 1999;MARZOUK et al, 2000;MOURAD et al, 2000;UNALAN and CEBECI, 2001;AL-SHOREPY et al, 2002;SENGONCA et al, 2003;TODARO et al, 2004;TURKSON et al, 2004;and NIZNIKOWSKI et al, 2006). The increasing of the birth weight with increasing of dam age and having the lower body weight of kids of young goats could be explaned with high reproductive performance of goats in mature age.…”

“…The effect of sex on survival rate was statistically insignificant for all stages (p>0.05). This result is similar with the results of MARZOUK et al (2000), SENGONCA et al (2003), TURKSON (2003) who have studied this trait on different goat breeds, although this result is differ from the results of LAES-FETTBACK and PETERS (1995), ALEXANDRE et al (1999), TURKSON et al (2004) and NIZNIKOWSKI et al (2006) who have determined that the mortalite rate of male kids is higher than that female kids. The effect of dam age on survival rate of kids was insignificant for all the studied periods.…”

Pre-weaning kid mortality in Adamitulu Jedokombolcha District, Mid Rift Valley, Ethiopia

“…It was also high compared to reports from other African countries ranging from 10 to 40.6% (Mtenga et al, 1993;Awemu et al, 1999;Turkson, 2003;Turkson et al, 2004;Aganga et al, 2005;Snyman, 2010).…”

“…A high mortality may also represent a compromised animal welfare which poses ethical concern in animal production (Martin et al, 2004). Several factors had been reported in the literature to affect mortality rate in goat kids such as type of birth, sex of kid, birth weight of kid, parity order, season of kidding and age of the kid (Awemu et al, 1999;Mtenga et al, 1993;Turkson, 2003;Turkson et al, 2004;Hailu et al, 2006). Generally, higher kid mortality occurs at birth and from birth to weaning while mortality is relatively low from weaning to breeding age in many production systems (Mtenga et al, 1993;Donkin and Boyazoglu, 2004).…”

Influences of breed, sex and age on seasonal changes in haematological variables of tropical goat kids

“…1), while the West African goat kids are confronted with the challenge of extra-uterine environment that is entirely different from that in the uterus, which makes them metabolically unstable and may increase their susceptibility to perinatal diseases, resulting in high neonatal mortality, most especially in thermally stressful seasons (Piccione et al, 2007). In West Africa, pre-and postweaning kid mortality has been reported to be as high as 10 and 23.1 %, respectively (Turkson et al, 2004). The newborns that survive usually adapt by developing functional changes in almost all organs and systems through a series of tissue-based metabolic and morphologic remodelling (Saddiqi et al, 2011), which greatly affects the survival of the newborn and, if effective, may reduce the incidence of newborn mortality (Nowak et al, 2000).…”