Milk-related performances of Murciano-Granadina goats reared in Italy compared to cosmopolitan breeds

Abstract

The Murciano-Granadina (MG) goat breed was introduced in 2016 in northern Italy and it has become the third most widespread breed after Saanen (SA) and Alpine (AL). The study aimed to compare milk yield and composition of MG with SA and AL reared under the same farming system. A total of 11,682 milk test-day records from 1947 goats reared in 7 single- and 7 multi-breeds herds were evaluated. All breeds included out off-season kiddings: MG is a permanent polyestric breed whereas specific strategies are commonly adopted to induce oestrus across the year in SA and AL. The mixed model included breed, parity, stage of lactation, kidding season and first-order interactions as fixed effects; goat, herd‐test‐date and residual were random effects. All the effects were significant in explaining the variability of the traits (p 1.00 in MG, while in SA was usually <1.00.

Keywords

• dairy goat
• milk yield
• fat-to-protein ratio
• milk quality
• kidding season