Abstract
Ten male Finnish Landrace goat kids and 10 male Finnish Landrace lambs raised under similar stall-feeding conditions were compared for feed intake, feed efficiency, growth rate and slaughter results. The animals were housed individually from 2 months old to slaughter in grated metal pens and offered timothy/meadow fescue hay ad libitum and a concentrate at ≤800 g/animal/day. In their daily ration lambs and kids received on average 14.98 and 9.55 MJ metabolizable energy (ME), 186 and 136 g crude protein (CP) and 125 and 81 g amino acids absorbed in the small intestine (AAT), respectively. Mean total dry matter (DM) intake (98 vs. 75 g/kgW 0.75) and mean growth rate (245 vs. 174 g animal/day) were higher for lambs than for kids. All these differences between the two species were significant ( p<0.001). On the other hand, dressing percentage (48.2 vs. 42.6%, p<0.001) and DM and AAT utilization (kg/kg meat, p<0.01) were higher in kids than in lambs. During rearing there were no health problems in lambs, but kids suffered from urinary tract problems. Kids needed 2 months more than lambs to produce an 18 kg carcass (202 vs. 143 days).
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