West African dwarf goat in Ghana (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu).
A new paper by scientists at in the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Wageningen University and Research (WUR) compared the lifetime performance of West African Dwarf goats (WAD) kept under various feeding systems. They conclude that West African smallholders can best enhance their goat production systems by supplementing the diets of their grazing goats with farm-generated feeds.
Comparisons of the lifetime productivity of individual animals raised by farmers using alternative livestock interventions allowed the research team to assess, reliably and over the long term, the investment opportunities for smallholder farmers.
A dynamic modelling approach was used to explore the effects of different feeding strategies on the lifetime productivity of West African Dwarf goats in southwestern Nigeria. These goats, which are markedly stunted, with typical heights of 30 to 50 cm (12 to 20 in), are more disease…
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