Comparative analysis of milk quantity and quality in native goat breeds of Kerala*

Goat rearing occupies an important place in augmenting the economy of our country. In India there are 23 well defined goat breeds and Kerala has two native breeds namely Malabari and Attappady Black, which vary significantly in milk production. Data on quantity of milk was collected from 100 Malabari and 70 Attappady Black goats. There was a significant influence of breed (p≤0.01) and parity (p≤0.05) on milk production. The average milk yield of Malabari goats was, 558.94 ± 4.21 ml per day, while for Attappady Black it was 340.22 ± 4.45 ml per day. Milk samples were collected from 54 Malabari and 35 Attappady black goats and significant difference was observed in fat per cent between two groups. Double digest restriction associated DNA sequencing (ddRADseq) is a modern reduced representation sequencing technique which is a powerful and inexpensive approach for identification of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) across populations. This technique was applied on two groups of Malabari and Attappady Black goats with differing milk production and the preliminary evaluation of results revealed SNPs in five major genes affecting milk production