Vol. 4, Issue 2, Part A (2019)

Author(s): GD Eyoh, MD Udo, CA Mbre and JS Ekpo A

Abstract: A study was carried out with sixteen West African Dwarf (WAD) bucks aged between 6-9 months to determine growth, morphological parameters and carcass characteristics under different housing patterns. The sixteen bucks were randomly assigned to four housing patterns which served as treatments, i.e. T₁ concrete house, T₂ mud house, T₃ bamboo house and T₄ zinc house in a completely randomised design for 56 days. Each treatment group was fed equal amounts of the three forages used which were Panicum maximum, Centrosema pubescens and Aspilia africana in addition to clean fresh drinking water. The results revealed that there were significant (P<0.05) differences in total weight gain, average daily weight gain and feed conversion ratio. The values showed consistent trend and were 0.75kg, 1.65kg, 0.88kg and 0.71kg, 13.39, 29.46, 15.71 and 12.68g/day and 69.45, 31.90, 54.74 and 71.76 respectively. This result indicates that mud housing pattern favours the production of WAD goats, hence should be adopted by smallholder farmers.