The effects of supplementation of creep feed with or without roughage on the growth performance and rumen morphology in pre-weaning boer kids.

This study examined the effects of creep feed supplementation (containing roughage and without roughage) to nursing goat kids on the growth performance, rumen morphology and development of kids from birth to weaning. Forty eight, seven-day- old, single born kids (live weight 4.4±0.09kg) were divided into 3 treatment groups, each containing 8 males and 8 females. All three groups had access to their dams’ milk. The kids from first treatment group had free access to creep feed containing roughage (CFR) and while those from second group had free access to creep feed without roughage (CF). The kids in the third treatment group (control) had access to their dams’ milk (DM) only. All three groups were kept isolated from their mothers from 0800 to 1200 hrs and from 1400 to 1800 hrs while having access to creep feed. Total weight gain and average daily gain of the kids from CFR group (11.2kg, 145.2g) was significantly greater than kids from CF group (7.9kg, 102.9g) (P<0.05) and kids from DM group (5.5kg, 71.1g) (P<0.05). The total weight gain and average daily gain of kids from CF was also significantly greater than kids from DM group (P<0.05). Two kids from each treatment group were sacrificed 24 hours after the last feeding at the age of 84 days. The tissue samples were taken from anterior sac, ventral sac, dorsal sac, caudo-dorsal blind sac, caudo-ventral blind sac and left pillar of rumen to analyze morphometric characteristics and rumen development. The rumen morphological characteristics, papillary surface area and keratinized layer of CFR (4.15mm2, 50.54μm), were not significantly different from CF (3.81mm2, 49.26μm) (P>0.05) but it was significantly different from DM (1.17mm2, 26.36μm) (P<0.05).