Management and goat kid mortality on Southern German dairy goat farms

Balasopoulou, Viktoria; Kalic, Maximilian; Zablotski, Yury; Zerbe, Holm und Voigt, Katja (2022): Management and goat kid mortality on Southern German dairy goat farms. In: Berliner und Münchener Tierärztliche Wochenschrift, Bd. 135

Abstract

Benchmarking is an important tool to improve health and profitability but requires available data from similar production systems for comparison of performance. This study was conducted to generate a first dataset regarding dairy goat man-agement and kid health in Southern Germany. Participation was voluntary, and 33 farmers contributed to a questionnaire survey, while 19 additionally recorded kidding and mortality data for twelve months in 2018/2019. A total of 2,371 kids were born at term, 154 of which were stillborn. Of the 2,217 live-born kids, a total of 195 died during the rearing period, with total losses (stillbirth and mortality of live-born kids) accounting for 14.7%. Farm-specific mortality parameters were variable, with a mean stillbirth rate of 6.4% (median: 5.8%;range: 0-20.7%).The average mortality of live-born kids was 9.1 % (median: 8.7%;range: 1.6-25.5%). Pre-dominant clinical signs associated with mortality were diarrhoea (25.6%), followed by weakness at birth (20.3%). Active control of colostrum intake (p=0.032) and selenium supplementation (p=0.008) were associated with lower overall mortality rates, while early weaning (aged 6-8 weeks) was associated with increased mor-tality in animals >1 month (p=0.043). A considerable percentage of post-weaning deaths and commonly observed diarrhoea in this age group also highlight the importance of appropriate management of coccidiosis.This study generated first benchmarking data for the specific conditions of predominantly organic Southern German dairy goat farms. Data analysis was also useful to identify individual areas of improvement on the participating farms and should be further promoted in small ruminant health management.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Tiermedizin
• Themengebiete: 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften > 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
• ISSN: 0005-9366
• Sprache: Englisch