Serum protein levels and neonatal growth rate of Nubian goal kids in Taiwan area

Abstract

Levels of serum total protein and gamma-globulin were determined in 43 newborn goat kids of up to 5 days of age on two goat farms in Taiwan using colorimetric assay and an agarose gel electrophoresis kit, respectively. The kids were sufficiently bottle-fed with the maternal colostrum every 6 h for the first day and every 12 h since 2 days. The overall mean serum total protein and gamma-globulin concentrations were low at birth (9.40 and 0.13 g dl(-1)), peaked around 24 h (12.45 and 3.33 g dl(-1)) and remained at a plateau with slight decrease through 5 days(11.50 and 2.23 g dl(-1)). The mean serum total protein and gamma-globulin levels at birth and at 24 h of age as well as BW gains during the first 5 days were not significantly (p>0.05) affected by litter size, kid sex, birth weight and farms. Kids which had ingested colostrum with total protein content >10.51 g dl(-1) at 6h grew better (p<0.05) without different (p>0.05) serum total protein level up to 24 h of age. Kids ingested first colostrum of gamma-globulin content higher than >7.51 g dl(-1) had higher (p<0.05) concentration of serum gamma-globulin during the first 24 h of life but did not have better growth rate. The contents of total protein and gamma-globulin of the first colostrum were highly correlated (p<0.05) with those of the serum of neonatal kids except that there was a lag time of 12 h for the correlation of total protein. It is suggested that there are colostral proteins other than gamma-globulin that have trophic effects to improve the overall performance of kids, and they apparently are absorbed and turnover differently from those of gamma-globulin. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.