Male effect using photostimulated bucks and nutritional supplementation advance puberty in goats under semi-extensive management.

ABSTRACT

Well-nourished spring-born female goats reach puberty in the autumn of the same year. Contrastingly, undernourished spring-born females reach puberty in the autumn of the following year. Therefore, in this study, we reared female goats (undernourished) under semi-extensive management and determined whether the introduction of photostimulated, sexually active males, advances puberty in these females, and whether nutritional supplementation increases the proportion of kidding females. Goats were born on March 30 and weaned at 2 months of age. Then, they grazed natural vegetation from 1000 to 1800 each day. Starting in December, two groups did not receive feed supplementation after grazing, whereas two other groups received 600 g daily supplements of a commercial concentrate. In April, one non-supplemented (n = 10) and other supplemented groups (n = 11) were moved indoors and kept in separate pens, where they were joined with sexually active bucks (n = 1 per group). Males were rotated daily between groups for 7 days. Other non-supplemented (n = 8) and supplemented groups (n = 11) were not joined with males. Most of the female goats under study reached puberty (70-100%). However, in supplemented and non-supplemented groups joined with males, puberty commenced much earlier (April) than in those non-exposed to males (September) (P < 0.001). The proportion of pregnant goats did not differ between groups joined with males (P > 0.05), but the proportion of goats that kidded was higher in supplemented (7/11) than in non-supplemented goats (2/10) (P < 0.05). In conclusion, in spring-born goats, the male effect using sexually active males advanced puberty, and nutritional supplementation increased the proportion of kidding goats in females reared under semi-extensive management.