Identifying constraints to health and production in the UK dairy goat industry :Subtheme; Colostrum

Research that informs the health and production of farmed dairy goats is sparse. Therefore, gaps in knowledge regarding current practices and concerns within the UK dairy goat industry were addressed by a postal survey of farmer members of the Milking Goat Association. Some 73% of farmers responded. Findings show extensive variation in farm practices. Farmers’ top priority for further research was kid health (79.5% of farmers), and pneumonia and diarrhoea were reported as the most prevalent illnesses of kids. The findings, alongside published literature and field experience, were used to inform the choice of a focused research topic for this Ph.D research. Kid health has important welfare and economic implications. Colostrum management is vital for kid health but sparsely researched. Therefore, three studies of goat colostrum were undertaken. Study one was an observational study on three commercial dairy goat farms that established baseline measures for the immunoglobulin, nutritional, and energy content of colostrum. Linear regression analyses established that Brix measures significantly predicted the mean ‘total solids’, energy, and immunoglobulin content of goat colostrum. In study two, Bland Altman analyses were used to quantify the reliability of Brix refractometer measures of colostrum, with results helpful for informing the methodology of study one as well as practice on farms. Study three was a single-farm study that measured the colostrum intakes of farmed dairy goat kids that were routinely removed from their mothers at birth and bottle-fed colostrum, providing baseline data for the quantities and timings of colostrum intakes achievable in bottle-fed kids during the first 13 hours of life when real-world factors are in play. These studies provide essential new baseline data for informing future research and guiding better colostrum management on farms and protecting the health, welfare, and production of the large numbers of kids born on commercial dairy goat farms