Developing a model for feedlot production of Boer goat slaughter kids

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this study, the effects of energy content of the feedlot diet as well as the length of the production period were investigated for Boer goat slaughter kids. The kids were housed in individual pens on the Elsenburg experimental farm, Western Cape, South Africa. Boer goat castrate kids were weaned at approximately 18 weeks of age (weighing 22.2 ± 3.5 kg) and were randomly allocated to one of three trial diets that varied in energy content; namely a low, medium and high energy diet (11.3, 12.0 and 12.7 MJ ME/ kg feed respectively) which were supplied ad libitum. The goats were further randomly allocated to one of five slaughter groups that were slaughtered at five week intervals at a commercial abattoir. The first group of goats was slaughtered at the start of the trial in order to serve as a baseline reference. During the study the effects of dietary energy content, and time spent in the feedlot were investigated for the feedlot production and slaughter characteristics of Boer goat kids. Additionally the effect of the energy content of the feedlot diets on the sensory and chemical properties of goat meat were evaluated.During the production period individual feed intake and live weight gain were monitored on a weekly basis. It was observed that live weight of the goats increased throughout the production period. Quadratic functions were used to describe the change in average daily gain and dry matter intake of the goats during the feeding period. Goats that were fed the low and medium energy diets exhibited higher daily gains (P= 0.02) and dry matter intakes (P< 0.01) than goats on the high energy diets. Dietary energy content and age of the animal in the feedlot did not influence the feed conversion ratio to produce a unit of live weight. A linear function was used to model the growth of the goats during this production period. The goats were not able to reach the point of inflection on the growth curve. Therefore the sigmoidal growth curve could not be plotted which could have been modelled by a function similar to the Gompertz model.Dressing percentages of the carcasses varied throughout the production period for all the diets, with goats on the low energy diet having the lowest dressing percentage (45.8%; P= 0.04). The energy content of the trial diets had no effect on the yield of the offal components and retail cuts of the carcass. Generally it was observed that the yields of the hindquarter and neck cuts decreased whilst that of the forequarter increased with the age of the goats at slaughter. The degree of carcass fatness increased with time spent in the feedlot, with the majority of fat being deposited in the abdominal cavity, rather than in the subcutaneous fat depot.Dietary energy content was expected to influence the levels of intramuscular fat, which in turn would affect the eating quality of the meat. However, the levels of energy in the diets fed to goats did not influence the tenderness, juiciness or the aroma and flavour profiles of the goat meat as observed during descriptive sensory analysis of the meat by a trained panel. Chemical analysis of the cooked meat samples also showed that the levels of intramuscular fat did not vary between the samples, resulting in the lack of differences detected between treatments in the sensory evaluation.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University