Native goat and "Morada Nova" sheep post-weaning growth on buffelgrass pasture

Abstract

An experiment carried out at Iracema Farm, of Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária do Ceará - EPACE -. in Quixadá, CE, Brazil, was set up to evaluate post-weaning growth rates of native goats and Morada Nova sheeps. It lasted two grazing periods of nine months each - October/1978 to July/1979 and October/1979 to July/1980 - including dry and wet seasons each one. A different set of males, belonging to each species was used in each grazing period. Mean weight of the animals at weaning were 13.76 ± 0.36 kg for goats and 15.53 ± 0.35 kg for sheeps. Past experiencies had showed that slaughtering weight for these animals is the range of 22.42 and 28.00 kg and are achieved after 18 months of age under traditional raising systems. In this work, goats reached 23.32 ± 0.43 kg and sheeps 27.13 ± 0.36 kg at 11 months of age. Sheeps were all the time heavier than goats, and may be a better choice to be raised under better management systems, as used in this work.