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Cuban Journal of Agricultural Science

versión impresa ISSN 0864-0408versión On-line ISSN 2079-3480

Cuban J. Agric. Sci. vol.53 no.1 Mayabeque ene.-mar. 2019  Epub 05-Feb-2018

 

Genetics

Persistence of milk production of Alpine goats in Cuba

Mildred Méndez1  * 

Raquel E. Ponce de León1 

Yoleisy García1 

Yusleiby Rodríguez1 

D. García1 

Marta Mora1 

1Instituto de Ciencia Animal, Apartado Postal 24, San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque, Cuba

Abstract

A total of 1,365 milk weighings from 455 goats of Alpine genotype were used, with lactation number between one and six, distributed in five units in the farm "Dagame", belonging to the Empresa Genética "Los Naranjos", located in Artemisa province, where parturitions occurred between 2005 and 2008. The objective was to determine non-genetic factors that affect the persistence of lactation and estimate its correlation with total milk production. A generalized mixed model was applied by the SAS MIXED procedure version 9.3 (2013), where fixed effects like herd, parturition year, parturition season (January- May and June-December) and lactation number were included, as well as the animal nested within each herd as random effect. In addition, the duration of lactation was included as a covariate. To estimate Pearson correlations, the CORR procedure of SAS was applied. Persistence was 53.6 % and the studied non-genetic factors were significant. The phenotypic correlations of persistence with total milk were 0.26. It can be concluded that persistence of lactation had a low phenotypic correlation, in relation to milk production and duration of lactation. Further researches should be conducted with larger samples and genealogical information to recommend its inclusion in genetic improvement programs.

Key words: milk weighing; Alpine; lactation; correlation

Introduction

Lactation persistence can be defined as the ability of animals to maintain high daily milk flow during lactation period. This is one of the main characteristics that define the lactation curve, besides being correlated with the initial production (El Faro 1996 ).

Due to the economic value of this trait (Dekkers et al. 1998) and its favorable correlation with health (Jakobsen et al. 2002) and female fertility (Muir et al. 2004), some countries work to assess lactation persistence to estimate genetic values (Mark et al. 2004).

Results of several studies agree that non-genetic factors that influence on lactation persistence of goats are number and parturition season (Marete et al. 2014), parturition year (El-Wakil and Fooda 2013) and lactation duration (Palas and Savas 2005).

The objective of this study was to know the non-genetic factors that affect the lactation persistence in goats of the Alpine genotype, in the farm “Dagame”, belonging to Empresa Genética "Los Naranjos".

Materials and Methods

A total of 1,365 weighings of milk from 455 goats of Alpine genotype, with number of lactation between one and six, whose parturitions were made between 1999 and 2007, distributed in five units of the farm "Dagame", belonging to the Empresa Genética "Los Naranjos", located in Artemisa province.

The feeding was based on pastures. There was a predominance of natural pastures, mainly composed of marvel grass (Dichantium anulatum), jiribilla (Andropogon caricosus) and jaragua (Hypharrenia rufa), some improved pastures such as star grass (Cynodon nlemfuensis), guinea (Megathyrsus maximus) and Bermuda (Cynodon dactylon) in some units. In the dry season, forage was supplied, and milking goats were offered 2.5 kg of daily concentrate, although this had a variable quality.

Paddocking system is radial, with a number of paddocks according to the groups in which herds are divided, that is milking and dry (pregnant and empty cows, respectively), under a continuous grazing regime. Animals had free access to grass and grazed between 6 and 8 h a day, although there is no water or shade in the paddocks. Milking was manually performed twice a day, at 7:00 a.m. and at 5:00 pm.

Individual milk production measurement (PDC) was carried out between 28 and 35 d, on the control day, and the milking was carried out thoroughly, so that milk that was calculated that day was considered as the total production of milk from the female, without considering that taken by the kid.

Persistence (P) was estimated according to the criteria of Johansson and Hansson (1940). The formula used for calculating was:

Where:

Leches

milk production accumulated in the first half of lactation (from one to three weighings per month)

Leche p

total milk production (from one to six weighings per month). Both productions were calculated with Fleischmann (1945) method

A generalized mixed model was applied by the SAS MIXED procedure, version 9.3 (2013), where fixed effects were included: herd (5), parturition year (4), parturition season (1: January-May and 2: June-December) and lactation number (from 1 to 6) and as random, the effect of the animal nested in each herd. In addition, lactation duration was included as a linear covariate, since in previous analyzes, this covariate of quadratic and cubic form was not important.

Where:

Yijkmn

f (µ) expected phenotipical value of lactation persistence, according to the function of specific bond

µ

mean or intercept

β (Di-Di)

linear covariable of the i-th lactation duration (i=1,.., 565)

Hj

fixed effect of the j-th herd (j=1,..,5)

Ak

fixed effect of the k-th parturition year (k=2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008)

El

fixed effect of the l-th parturition season (l=1: January-May and 2: June-December)

Lm

fixed effect of the m -th lactation (m=1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6)

Cj(Hi)

random effect of the j-th goat nested in the i-th herd

eijkmn

random error, due to each observation NID~(0, s2e)

For those effects that were significant, a multiple comparison test was applied for the minimum quadratic means, according to Tukey-Kramer test (Kramer 1956)

CORR procedure of SAS was used to estimate the Pearson correlations between persistence and total milk production (LTOT).

Results and Discussion

Table 1 shows the general statistics for lactation persistence. General mean obtained was 53.6 %, similar to that reported by Takma et al. (2009) in Turkey with Saanen goats, with 52.6 %, which had a lactation duration of 150-180 d, with milk production of 180-200 kg. While Henao et al. (2017), in Colombia, with Alpine goats, reported superior values for this trait (63.4 %) with 210 d of lactation.

Table 1 General statistics for lactation persistence in Alpine goats 

The significant effect of parturition year and parturition season, as well as lactation duration (β = 0.5762 ± 0.01636) as a linear covariable in lactation persistence, was demonstrated (Table 2 ). Similar results were obtained by Pesántez et al. (2014) in Anglo Nubian x Criolla goats, in Loja, Ecuador.

Table 2 Analysis of variance of fixed effects for lactation persistence in Alpine goats 

Tables 3 and 4 present the means obtained for the effects of parturition year and parturition season. The effect of parturition season on lactation persistence evidenced that goats that gave birth in the rainy season had lower persistence with respect to those that did it in dry season. Results contrary to those reported by Marete et al. (2014) in Alpine goats, in Kenya, and Pesántez et al. (2014) in Anglo Nubian x Criolla goats also obtained higher values of persistence in rainy season. This result may be related to the fact that goats were supplemented in this period.

Table 3 Effect of parturition season on lactation persistence in Alpine goats 

The persistence of milk production showed unstable performance during the years of study (Tables 4 ). The highest value was reached in the first year. These results could be due to the availability of pastures, as well as to possible uncontrolled variations in management. The effect of parturition year on lactation persistence was also reported by authors such as Palas and Savas (2005) with Saanen goats, in Turkey, El-Wakil et al. (2013), with Dhofari goats, in Egypt, and Marete et al. (2014) with Alpine goats, in Kenya.

Table 4 Effect of herd on lactation persistence in Alpine goats 

ab Different letters in the same column in- dicate significant differences (P<0.0001)

Lactation persistence showed low phenotypic correlations with LTOT. These results are similar to those obtained by El-Wakil et al. (2013), with Dhofari goats, in an extensive system and under semi-arid conditions, and by Pesántez et al. (2014) in Anglo Nubian x Criolla goats, in Loja, Ecuador, with estimates of the phenotypic correlations of persistence with total milk production of 0.26. These authors report that these low results could be due to the fact that studied herds have not been subject to genetic improvement programs for milk production and persistence. While Henao et al. (2017), obtained correlations between milk production at 210d and persistence of 0.35. These authors showed that the most persistent animals are the most productive throughout the period.

Several authors (Cobuci et al. 2003) suggest that persistence is a trait that should be included in improvement programs, since selection for milk production does not guarantee the genetic improvement of persistence in lactation.

Conclusions

It is concluded that lactation persistence of in goats of the Alpine genotype was affected by the effects of the herd, year of parturition and time of parturition. In addition, it presented a low phenotypic correlation with milk production, research on this trait should continue with larger samples and with genealogical information to estimate heritability. Furthermore, it is suggested to establish genetic correlations with other traits of interest, in order to recommend their inclusion in genetic improvement programs.

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Received: January 31, 2018; Accepted: February 05, 2018

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