INCIDENCE OF PREWEANING MORTALITY IN WEST AFRICAN DWARF GOATS AND THEIR RED SOKOTO HALFBREDS

Abstract

Preweaning mortality in West African dwarf (WAD) and West African dwarf X Red Sokoto (RS) half bred goats was studied alongside Appropriate management systems aimed at improving survivability. The overall mortality rate at the end of the experiments was 25% (28.9% among WAD kids and 23% among WADXRS kids). Mortality rate was significantly affected by breed genotype (P<0.01), Sex (P<0.01), season of birth (P<0.01), birth weights (P <0.01) and birth type (P<0.05). Kids with birth weights lower than the population mean had higher mortality rate than kids with birth weights higher than the population mean. The Interaction effect between sex and birth type significantly influenced mortality rate (P<0.01). Mortality was due mainly to infectious diseases such as peste de petite ruminante (PPR), Pneumonia, diarrhoea, and mycoplasmosis. Kids vaccinated against PPR and maintained under regular heat supply survived better than kids allowed access to either heat supply, vaccination against PPR or neither of the treatments.