Evaluation of Productive and Reproductive Performance of Indigenous Goats Reared Under Traditional Management Systems

The research aimed to evaluate the productive and reproductive performance of local goat breeds managed under traditional systems in three tehsils of Swat: Kabal, Charbagh, and Matta. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data on 120 goats. Further, an automatic milk analyzer was used in analyzing 20+20+20=60 (20 from each tehsil) samples of milk. There was significant variation (P < 0.05) between sites in both age at puberty and age at first kidding, body weight, daily milk yield, litter size and most traits of milk composition. Nevertheless, there was no significant difference in the length of the estrous cycle, milk density, and pH. Goats in Matta showed early puberty and first kidding (327.60 ± 16.77 days and 588.25 ± 27.38 days respectively) and highest daily milk production (2.05 liters) compared to that of Charbagh and Kabal (1.29 liters) and (1.09 liters), respectively. The body weights of bucks and does also differed among sites and Matta does ones were heaviest (38.68 ± 1.12 kg). Parity had a significant effect on litter size. There was a significant location to location difference in composition of milk and in particular the fat, SNF, lactose and protein contents were in the range fat 3.94=3.74; SNF, 8.45=8.15%, lactose 3.69=3.63% and protein, 3.87=4.21% respectively. In all locations, fat was inversely associated with the milk yield whereas protein had a positive correlation with it.