Energy Requirements for Maintenance and Growth of Male Saanen Goat Kids

The aim of study was to determine the energy requirements for maintenance and growth of forty-one Saanen, intact male kids with initial body weight (BW) of 5.12 +/- 0.19 kg. The baseline (BL) group consisted of eight kids averaging 5.46 +/- 0.18 kg BW. An intermediate group consisted of six kids, fed for ad libitum intake, that were slaughtered when they reached an average BW of 12.9 +/- 0.29 kg. The remaining kids (n = 27) were randomly allocated into nine slaughter groups (blocks) of three animals distributed among three amounts of thy matter intake (DMI; ad libitum and restricted to 70% or 40% of ad libitum intake). Animals in a group were slaughtered when the ad libitum-treatment kid in the group reached 20 kg BW. In a digestibility trial, 21 kids (same animals of the comparative slaughter) were housed in metabolic cages and used in a completely randomized design to evaluate the energetic value of the diet at different feed intake levels. The net energy for maintenance (NEm) was 417 kJ/kg(0.75) of empty BW (EBW)/d, while the metabolizable energy for maintenance (MEm) was 657 kJ/kg(0.75) of EBW/d. The efficiency of ME use for NE maintenance (k(m)) was 0.64. Body fat content varied from 59.91 to 92.02 g/kg of EBW while body energy content varied from 6.37 to 7.76 MJ/kg of EBW, respectively, for 5 and 20 kg of EBW The net energy for growth (NE,) ranged from 7.4 to 9.0 MJ/kg of empty weight gain by day at 5 and 20 kg BW, respectively. This study indicated that the energy requirements in goats were lower than previously published requirements for growing dairy goats.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP