Desempenho de cabritos submetidos a diferentes sistemas de aleitamento.

Abstract

The feeding of goats is a determining factor for the performance of the herd, favoring the weight gain of the animals. The supply of milk in large quantities, or at will, slows down the intake of solid foods and consequently causes undesirable costs to the producer. This work aimed to evaluate the productive performance of goats kids submitted to different breastfeeding systems. Forty Saanen × American-Alpine crossbred animals were used, 20 females and 20 whole males, distributed in a completely randomized design in a factorial scheme (2 × 2 + 1) × 2, considering as factors two shifts of milk supply, two quantities of milk offered and one additional control treatment, considering sex (4 males and 4 females) as a factor, being 5 treatments and 8 repetitions, constituted according to the quantity and frequency of the milk offered, comprising two stages of breastfeeding. The first phase considered the initial 28 days and the second phase the final 35 days, in the first phase the animals received: CT = 1.2 kg milk / animal / day (morning / afternoon); T1 = 1.2 kg milk / animal / day (morning / afternoon); T2 = 1.2 kg milk / animal / day (morning / afternoon); T3 = 1.0 kg milk / animal / day (morning / afternoon); T4 = 1.0 kg milk / animal / day (morning / afternoon). For the second phase: CT = 1.0 kg milk / animal / day (morning / afternoon); T1 = 1.0 kg milk / animal / day (morning); T2 = 1.0 kg milk / animal / day (afternoon); T3 = 0.8 kg milk / animal / day (morning); T3 = 0.8 kg milk / animal / day (afternoon). There was no difference (P > 0.05) between treatments for weights from birth to weaning. There was a frequency effect for the DWG, where the animals from T1 were superior (P = 0.97) to T3, T4, and CT. The sex effect showed significance (P <0.1) with males being superior to females in weight development. For feed intake and total consumption (g / kg DM), animals from T1 were superior (P <0.1) to animals from T2, T4, and CT. It is recommended to adopt the breastfeeding systems used, regardless of the amount of goat's milk or the frequency of breastfeeding. Male goats kids showed better weight development than females.