Growth performance of Boer goats and their F1 and F2 crosses and backcrosses with Central Highland goats in Ethiopia

This study aims to investigate genetic and non-genetic factors affecting growth performance of Boer goats and their crosses with Central Highland goats (CHG) reared on-station at Ataye site of Debre-Birhan Agricultural Research Center in Ethiopia. A total of 512 kids of Boer (B), F1 (B X CHG) and F2(a) (F1 X F1) crossbreds and backcrosses F2(b) (B X F1) born from 381 kiddings recorded between 2012 and 2017 were used for the analysis of body weight at birth, at weaning, at six-month, at yearling and body weight gain to weaning, weaning to six-month and six-month to yearling. The overall least-squares means across genotypes for birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), six-month weight (6MW), yearling weight (YW) were 3.05±0.06 kg, 10.9±0.36 kg, 12.5±0.51 kg and 18.3±0.88 kg, respectively for Boer and 2.62±0.04 kg, 8.80±0.22 kg, 11.2±0.31 kg and 16.7±0.48 kg, respectively for F1. Similarly, the BW and WW of the F2(a) and F2(b) were (2.50±0.13 kg and 8.37±0.74 kg) and (2.94±0.15 kg and 9.80±0.75 kg) respectively. The overall least-squares means across breed groups for daily weight gain to weaning, weaning to six-month and six-month to yearling were 83.9±3.76 g, 25.6±3.29 g and 27.6±2.69 g, respectively for Boer, and 67.0±2.26 g, 31.5±2.00 g and 28.4±1.46 g, respectively for F1. Similarly, daily weight gains to weaning was 67.7±7.66 g and 78.7±7.74 g for the F2(a) and F2(b) respectively. Sex, type of birth, year of birth and season of birth affected the studied traits, while, doe parity has no significant effect except at the later age weight gain. In conclusion, the overall growth performances of all the studied genotypes were below expectations which indicates their sub-optimal adaptability to the study area. In addition to the genotype, the non-genetic factors affect the growth performance, so improvement in growth performances is possible by minimizing environmental effects.