Goat Farming

Summer Management Strategies of Goats in India

November 14, 2022

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Summer Management Strategies of Goats in India

Globally goat farming is being important in employment specially for the landless, labours and for unemployed forces. Among the farm animals, goats arguably are considered the best-suited animals to survive in tropical climates. Both cold and heat stress was found to negatively influence growth, milk and meat production and compromised the immune response, thereby significantly reducing goats’ welfare. Goat welfare could be assessed based on several indicators covering behavioral, physical, physiological and productive responses. The important indicators of goat welfare include agonistic behavior, vocalization, skin temperature, body condition score (BCS), hair coat conditions, rectal temperature, respiration rate, heart rate, sweating, reduced growth, reduced milk production and reduced reproductive efficiency.

Introduction

India has the second largest global goat population and has the potential to increase its role and profits in the lucrative global goat market. The initial investment in goat farming is very less compared to other livestock farming with no religious taboos on its commercial products. Chevon (goat meat) is the country’s most popular and extensively consumed meat. Goat milk has been used for therapeutic purposes since ancient times and has recently acquired popularity in human health due to its close proximity to human milk for simple digestion and all-around health benefits. To propose goat milk as therapeutic milk for human health, more research is needed to uncover and validate its medicinal characteristics. In the future years, demand for goat milk and milk products for domestic use and export is predicted to increase. Goat husbandry offers a ray of hope for future employment, nutritional security, and wealth for the country’s millions of small and marginal farmers.

Behavioral responses of goats under heat stress

Bunching in the shade, slobbering, panting, open-mouth breathing, decreasing feed intake and increasing water consumption. In severe cases of heat stress in goats, lack of coordination, trembling and down animals may be seen. Seeking shade is a conspicuous form of behavioral adaptation. If shade is not available, animals will change their posture to the vertical position in respect to the sun in order to reduce the effective area for heat exchange. Animals can change posture, i.e. stand or spread out to increase surface area for heat loss and reduce activity. Under severe heat stress, animals moisten their body surface with water, saliva or nose secretions.

Goats expressed decreased urination and defecation under heat stress conditions.The reason for reduced urination frequency could be due to increased respiratory and cutaneous cooling mechanisms which might lead to severe dehydration, thereby leading to a reduction in their urination frequency. Also, the reduction in defecating frequency could be an adaptive mechanism of these animals to conserve body water. In extreme heat, they tend to lie down to reduce their locomotion and spend more time in the shade. Standing and lying are behavioral adaptive mechanisms to prevent additional heat load from the ground and to facilitate effective heat dissemination.Heat-stressed animals decrease feed intake in an attempt to create less metabolic heat because the heat increment of feeding is an important source of heat production. Also, the maintenance requirements increased by 30% because of heat stress and the energy intake would not be enough to cover the daily requirements which results in an apparent body weight loss. Body weight, daily feed intake and gain decreased under heat stress conditions in goats. Body temperature, respiration rate and heart rate increases due to heat stress. Heat stress also leads to aberration of reproductive functions, oxidative stress, enzymatic dysfunction, electrolyte imbalances, promoting an unfavorable endocrine balance and reducing feed intake, and meat quality.

India possesses the second-largest goat population in the world. In the prevailing socio-economic conditions in the country where per capita land holding is hardly 0.2 Ha, goat rearing becomes an inseparable component of mixed farming system. Goat farming has been recommended as the best choice for the rural people in developing countries because of the low investment, wide adaptability, high fertility and fecundity, low feed and management needs, high feed conversion efficiency, quick pay-off and low risk involved. Goats play an important role in income generation, capital storage, employment generation and improving household nutrition.

Goat rearing is the backbone of the economy of small and landless farmers in India. It is an insurance against crop failure and provides alternate source of livelihood to the farmers all year round. Goats provide dependable source of income to 40% of the rural population who are below the poverty line.

The controversy over goats is on damage it causes to the environment, predominantly due to its browsing nature. On one hand, the goat is accused as the major cause of deforestation and soil erosion, and on the other hand, it is claimed as a useful animal for poor people and is responsible for clearing the bushes and making the land worthy of cultivation. The goat’s bad reputation arises mainly from its mismanagement by man rather than any inherent fault. Nevertheless, the trend is slowly changing, and several states are now encouraging goat husbandry.

Production Systems

In our country, goats are reared by men and women with diverse working and professional background. The production systems are as numerous as the socio-economic and varied agricultural situations in the country. However, they can be broadly classified into the following:-

a) Tethering : This is common in the sub-humid and humid zones, where probably because of intensive cropping, it is a convenient means of rearing goats from the stand point of control, minimum labour input and utilization of feed in situ. It is thus a sedentary system. A variation of this method is combining tethering with grazing up to 5 goats at a time, led by ropes held by women and children.
b) Extensive production : This involves low carrying capacity in situations where land is marginal and is plentiful. It is characterized by low rainfall and various browse plants. The system is used by nomadic people, usually in very low rainfall areas or during winter months when crop resides are available.
c) Intensive production : The goats are fed in confinement with limited access to land. It involves high labour and cash inputs. Cultivated grasses and agro-industrial byproducts are fed in situ. This system also has the advantage of allowing control over the animals.
d) Semi-intensive production : This system is practiced to some degree in most of the situations, but the nature and extent of integration depend on the type of crops grown and their suitability to goats. The advantages of this system are increased fertility of land via the return of dung and urine, control of waste herbage growth, reduced fertilizer usage, easier crop management, increased crop yields, and greater economic returns.

Status of Goat industry

The goat industry in India has yet to be firmly laid down on scientific lines. Goat keepers are maintaining goats in all kinds of situations depending upon the ecology and their circumstances. The minimum goat unit could consist of one goat and the maximum could go to a few hundreds under range management. Goat farming in the country is mainly based on ‘zero input’. The fear of mortality has perhaps been largely responsible for not starting many large-scale goat farms. However, large-scale goat farms have successfully running since over last 30 years at the CSWRI Avikanagar, MPKVV Rahuri, and at Leh.

Constraints of the Goat industry

The following could be considered as the technical constraints for securing a thriving goat industry in the country:-

a) Non-availability of high-yielding breeding stock.
b) Low level of nutrition and managerial efficiency.
c) Lack of definition of the production objectives.
d) Limited attention to application of the modern techniques for improving the reproductive efficiency, eg. AI, synchronization of estrous, semen freezing etc.
e) Limited use of outstanding exotic breeds for improvement.
f) Inadequate control of diseases and parasites due to non-availability of prophylactic vaccines against important contagious diseases.
g) Lack of knowledge on successful rearing of kids. Kid mortality is very high when weaning is practiced at a very young age.
h) Lack of knowledge on silvi-pastoral system.
i) Housing for goats in different eco-zones requires a very elaborate and systematic study.
j) Organized marketing is very limited. This has resulted in unscrupulous exploitation by the middle-man who is often seen moving with the goats along the migratory routes.

Strategies to alleviate heat stress

A variety of methods should be adopted by small ruminant producers/owners to overcome the negative effects of heat stress, including the use of shades, feeding and grazing strategies, providing water, handling time, the use of fans and evaporative cooling, and site selection of animals’ housing.

Shade is the easiest method to reduce the impact of high solar radiation, and it is applicable under extensive conditions. The use of shades, fans or evaporative cooling is not possible in semi-intensive systems as goats are grazed in the open during most of the day, and this necessitates other strategies (i.e. portable shades) to counteract the adverse effects of heat stress. Accessibility of animals to shade during summer is simple, easy, cheap and an efficient tool to minimize heat stress. Providing goats access to shade allows a reduction in rectal temperature and respiration rate in goats. A well-designed shade structure reduces heat load by 30– 50%. Shelters do not need to be complicated or elaborate, trees and shrubs can serve as shelters for animals from solar radiation , and are usually the least-cost alternative. If natural shelter is not available, many goat producers use plastic calf hutches to provide shelters. In addition, hay or straw shades, solid shade provided by sheet metal painted with white on top and aluminum sheets are the most effective and cheap materials.
Ration modifications can greatly help in reducing the negative effect of heat stress, and these adjustments may include changes in feeding schedules (feeding at cool hours, feeding intervals), browsing time, and ration composition such as dietary fiber adjustment, the use of high-quality fiber forage, increased energy density (supplemental protected fat) and use of feed additives [buffers (sodium bicarbonate), niacin, antioxidants and fungal culture (yeast culture)].
During summer, the feeding behavior for most of the animals changes and they tend to consume more feed during the cooler periods of the day. Therefore, feeding animals during the cooler periods of the day encourages them to maintain their normal feed intake and prevents the co-occurrence of peak metabolic and climatic heat load. Also, feeding animals at more frequent intervals helps to minimize the diurnal fluctuation in ruminal metabolites and increase feed utilization efficiency in the rumen. Another point to be taken into account to alleviate heat stress is the grazing time. In extreme heat, animals decrease their grazing time and spend more time in the shade, especially during the heat of the day. They graze during the period of the milder weather during the day, i.e. before sunrise, at dawn and during the night.
Careful ration modifications during heat stress are important in achieving the optimum animal performance. Decreasing the forage to concentrate ratio can result in more digestible rations that may be consumed in greater amounts. Feed containing low fiber rations during hot weather is logical since heat production is highly associated with metabolism of acetate compared with propionate. More nutrient-dense diets are usually preferred during the heat stress period. Dairy goats supplemented with 4% fat during summer had lower rectal temperature. Soybean oil fed to goats kept under heat stress increased milk fat content.
Feed additives have been proposed to offset the consequence of heat stress. For example, antioxidants such as vitamin C and E protect the body defense system against excessive production of free radicals (antioxidants are free radical scavengers) during heat stress and stabilize the health status of the animal.
One of the best practices to reduce heat stress is to provide adequate fresh and cool drinking water. The water requirements of goats increase under heat stress conditions, thus, it is essential that animals have a continuous access to adequate, clean, cool and fresh water. This is done by having adequate watering devices (making sure pressure is adequate to refill waterers), and providing more water sources in the pasture.
In addition, handling animals should be kept at minimum. Goats can be handled (i.e. milking, transportation) in the early morning or late evening time, and the afternoon work should be avoided when body temperature is already high. One of the effective methods for prevention of heat stress is to delay afternoon milking for 1-2 hours.
Also, it may be necessary to install fans or other cooling systems in barns and similar structures Cooling goats by spraying could reduce heat stress symptoms and improve animal welfare. Direct wetting of animals is often used as an emergency measure and can be an effective protective method.
The site selection of animals’ housing is fundamental to decrease exposure and minimize the effect of heat stress. Proper selection of the housing site to emphasize factors for enhancing heat dissipation (minimal radiation, air temperature and humidity, and maximal air velocity) will have long-term protection benefits. Fully enclosed shelters are not recommended for hot climates because of the decreased natural air velocity, therefore, it is preferred to use partially enclosed shelters.