aistand south~ern afrkca - (PDF, 101 mb) - USAID

Table 2. Productivity of indigenous goat breeds in Zimbabwe (means and standarr4 effors)
Area Nyanga north Gwanda south
Goat breed Small East African Goat Matebele Goat
Trait
Age at first kidding (days) 606± 25.85
Weight at first kidding(kg) - 27.5± 0.78
Kidding intervals (days) 370± 21.90 311± 5.28
Pre-weaning growth rate(g/day) 43.5± 0.30 54±0.87
Weight at 150 days (kg) 9.25± 0.16 11.50±0.11
Utter size 1.30 1.19
Pre-weianing mortality (%) 41 3,
Peak kidding morths March/April; September
to December
July;September to December
the wetter area (Nyanga north) the hot wet
season (November to March) resulted in poor
growth and higher mortalities whilst in the drier
area (Gwanda south) feed availability seemed to
be the major constraint. Kids born in the cool dry
season (April to July) grew slowly but did not die
in numbers as large as kids born in the hot dry
season (August to October). The implication of
this is that there was no "ideal" season for
breeding communai area goats. The current
practice of uncontrolled all year round breeding
was proved to optimise production in communal
area farming systems.
The results also emphasised how limitation of
management contributes to high rates of
pre-weaning reproductive wastage caused by
involuntary exits from flocks. Animals that went
missing or died due to unknown causes
accounted for 85% and 81%, respectively,of total
deaths by ages 30 and 150 days in Nyanga north
(Table 3).
Table 3. Causes of mortality and cumulative
numbem of death of kids in flocks in
Nyanga North at ages 30 and 150
days
Aie of kids (days)
30 150
Missing 2 46
Death due to 22 38
unknown cause
Predators 0 4
Disease 8 14
Diseas8 14unknown
Slaughtered 0 1
In Gwanda south where records were kept for
perinatal deaths, deaths within 48 hours of birth
accounted for 69% of deaths by 30 days of age
while kids that went missing or died due to
unknown causes accounted for 27% of the total
100
deaths (Table 4). Perinatal deaths are often due
to absence of stockmen during parturition and
kids are either squashed by dams or fail to suckle
colostrum within 12 hours of birth. By the age of
150 days, management-related deaths accounted
for 74% of the total deaths in Gwanda
south (Table 4). Diseases were proportionat'
less important (Table 3 and 4), accounting fo- 3
and 21% of the total deaths in Nyanga and
Gwanda south, respectively. This implies that
productivity of communal area flocks can be
improved without recourse to expensive
veterinary interventions. Earlier reports from
the research programme (Hale, 1986) and from
the Faculty ofVeterinary studies (Honhold et al,
1988) had suggested that diseases were the
primary cause of pre-weaning mortality.
However, their conclusions were based on a
narrow database and could be misleading. Borne
and Monicat (1992) using a large database,
reported results similar to this study from
surveys of six different communal areas.
Table 4. Causes of mortality and cumulative
numbers of death of kids in flocks
inGwande South at ages 30 and 150
days.
Age of kids (days)
30 150
Dead withn 48 h
of birth
63 63
Missing 7 55
Death due to
Prdaos
18 54
cause
Predators
0a13
0 13
Disease 3 48
Slaughtered 0 1
On-station results indicated that the
indigenous small ruminants responded to good
nutrition environments which resulted in