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

Abstract

Levels of serum total protein and γ-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 γ-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 γ-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 6 h 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 γ-globulin content higher than >7.51 g dl −1 had higher ( p<0.05) concentration of serum γ-globulin during the first 24 h of life but did not have better growth rate. The contents of total protein and γ-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 γ-globulin that have trophic effects to improve the overall performance of kids, and they apparently are absorbed and turnover differently from those of γ-globulin.