Effects of perinatal nutrition on lactational performance, metabolic and hormonal profiles of dairy goats and respective kids
Introduction
Goats can adapt to different areas where the environment, and consequently the quality and the quantity of pastures vary widely. The adoption of intensive methods of husbandry in goats for higher milk yields (Rubino et al., 1995) is likely to increase the incidence of metabolic diseases. Therefore, under more intensive production systems, it is imperative to pay more attention to animal health and welfare. Estimation of blood biochemical parameters such as hormones, metabolites and proteins are helpful complementary diagnostic tools (Kaneko et al., 1997) and form the basis of metabolic profile tests which help to predict and prevent the occurrence of several metabolic diseases.
Pregnancy and lactation are physiological stages thought to induce metabolic stress (Drackley, 1999). Underfeeding pregnant sheep can induce deleterious effects on foetal and newborn lambs by adversely affecting placental size, foetal growth, deposition of foetal fat reserves for use after birth, maternal udder development and colostrum and milk production (Mellor, 1983, Mellor, 1988). This may be even more important in grazing goats because they cannot meet their energy requirements for late pregnancy especially when parturition is scheduled out-of-season, or in the instance of marginal and hill land goat production. Therefore goats fed pasture or roughage should benefit from being supplemented with a diet of high nutritional level in late pregnancy.
The objective of this study, therefore, was to investigate the effects of perinatal nutrition on lactational performance, metabolic and hormonal profile in dairy goats and in the kids.
Section snippets
Animals, location and experimental protocol
The study was conducted in southern Italy (40°38′N; 15°49′E) at the “Unità di Ricerca per la Zootecnia Estensiva (CRA)” (Bella, Italy) experimental farm located at 360 m above sea level, during the month of October. Fourteen (14) Red Syrian goats homogeneous for age (4–5 years), live weight (LW; 46.5 ± 1.5 kg) and body condition score (BCS; 2.1 ± 0.1, arbitrary units) and the kids were used. This breed is characterized with the yellow colour and it has long and soft hair prevailed by red or brown
Results
Gestation length was similar between the two groups (group LD 150 ± 0.2 days and group HD 150 ± 0.8). Sex of kids, which was balanced between treatment groups and type of birth did not affect hormones or metabolites measured. At birth, kids’ LW were similar between the HD (3.5 ± 0.4 kg) and LD groups (3.2 ± 0.4 kg). This progressively increased (P < 0.001) over time but was not affected by maternal nutrition. On week 5, HD kids weighed 6.7 ± 0.4 kg and LD kids weighed 6 ± 0.4 kg. Similarly, average daily growth
Discussion
Metabolic and endocrine profiles have been utilized to evaluating the metabolic status and identifying pathological conditions such as certain infectious diseases and nutritional deficiencies in animals (Celi et al., 1995, Di Trana and Celi, 1997). The present study determined the concentrations and changes in concentrations of selected plasma constituents in dairy goats and progeny in response to maternal dietary level during the last 4 weeks of gestation and the first 5 weeks of lactation.
Acknowledgements
The Authors would like to thank Giovanni Masino for his meaningful contribution made during the trial, Associate Prof Alba Parmegiani and Dr Nadia Govoni for their assistance during the leptin assay and Associate Prof. Attilio Accorsi for his assistance during the PRL assay. This research was supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Scientific Research, project PRIN 2003.
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