Analysis of Milk Production Traits of Alpine and Saanen Goat Populations in Croatia and Slovenia
Summary
A total of 65,204 lactation records that were recorded over the period from 2005 to 2016 in Alpine (ALP) and Saanen (SAN) goat populations in Croatia (CRO) and Slovenia (SVN) were used to determine lactation milk yield (MY), fat content (FC) and protein content (PC). The objective of this study was to estimate the sources of non-genetic variation for milk production traits. Data according to the ICAR standards were obtained from the Central database of the Croatian Agricultural Agency and the Slovenian Central Database for Small Ruminants. The data were analysed by the PROC MIXED procedure in the SAS/STAT software based on the restricted maximum likelihood method (REML). The results showed significant effects of the population, parity, litter size, year and month of kidding and the interactions between them as well as the effect of lactation length on analysed traits. SAN goats from Croatia produced the highest MY (585.09 ± 18.03 kg) among the four goat populations that were included in the study. Slovenian SAN goats produced 511.74 ± 28.92 kg of MY. MY in ALP goats was higher in the Croatian population (499.59 ± 7.88 kg) compared to the Slovenian ALP population (486.38 ± 18.86 kg). Milk yield increased with litter size and was the highest in the fourth parity, thereafter declining slowly.
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