Malabari goats: Characterization, management, performance and genetic variability

Malabari goats inhabit the Calicut, Kannur, Waynad and Malappuram districts of Kerala, India. They are medium to small size animals having varied coat colour ranging from white to admixtures and black. These goats are reared mainly for meat. Phenotypic and genetic characterization of Malabari goats was carried out by using the information collected from breeding tract of these goats. The measurements on body traits of 323 animals from about 65 flocks were recorded. Information on performance traits, managemental practices were collected by interviewing the goat keepers individually. Blood samples collected at random from unrelated 48 animals from breeding tract were utilised for genetic characterization. The average height at wither, body length, heart girth, paunch girth, face length, measured 41.87, 39.20, 38.93, 38.13, 10.27 cm, respectively, at the weaning age (3 months) whereas in adult animals it measured 68.41, 70.30, 73.17, 75.04, 17.28 respectively. The body weights at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months of age were 5.73, 9.20, 13.27, 20.54 kg, respectively, and that of adult goats were 30.68 and 41.20 in female and male respectively. The animals are kept under semi intensive management. Malabari goats show early maturity and conceive at an age of 8 to 10 months. The male starts breeding at an age of 9_12 months. The breed is having a good prolificacy i.e. 50% twinning, 25% triplets and 5% quadruplets. The milk yield varies from 0.5 to 1.5 litre/day. The microsatellite based genetic analysis indicated the number of alleles varying from 4 to 26 with an overall mean of 0.36. The average observed heterozygosity varied from 0.033 to 0.979 whereas expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.152 to 0.925 with mean of 0.689. The gene diversity varied from 0.153 to 0.927 and allelic richness varied from 3.61 to 20.96. The values of the FIS ranged from 0.028 (ILSTS002) to 0.0.924 (ETH 225). The heterozygotic deficiency observed might be due to the inbreeding caused due to indiscriminate and unplanned mating among the animals and lack of sufficient number of good breeding bucks.