Goat Production and Supply Chain Management in the Tropics

Pramod Kumar Rout, Ashok Kumar, Basanta Kumara Behera

• Publisher: CAB International
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781789240139
• eBook ISBN: 9781789240153
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Veterinary Medicine

This book is a practical manual for goat production systems covering: breeding and selection, feeding based on available crops and resources, and targeted preventative health care for increased productivity and income. It outlines best practice and strategies for setting up a farm, overcoming challenges, increasing milk and meat quality, obtaining sustainability, reducing environmental pollution, optimising climatic conditions and tapping into local know-how. In addition, the book details developing region-specific data for effective decision making and better management, as well as how to run a developmental project to empower stake holders for higher production, support innovation, and analyse the supply chain for better product quality and marketing.

1 Goat Production Challenges to Food Security

Livestock production makes a significant economic contribution to developing countries by supporting food security, making use of animal by-products (e.g. skin, fibre, manure) and contributing to capital accumulation. In addition, livestock improvement programmes are immensely helpful in improving the social and cultural lives of several million resource-poor farmers, enabling sustainability in farming management practice and economic stability. Both human and livestock populations are increasing in magnitude, but at different rates. Surprisingly, the current growth rate of ruminant populations is half that of the human population growth rate. At present, the total goat population is estimated to be about 1 billion. Goats inhabit a wide range of ecological systems (Skapetas and Bampidis, 2016). The goat population has undergone the largest increase (+34%) since 2000, compared to pigs (+15%), cattle (+14%) and sheep (+14%) (Bertolini et al., 2018; for current information, see www.fao.org/faostat/en). The distribution pattern shows that 90% of goats are distributed in Asia and Africa, followed by the Americas, Europe and Oceania (Skapetas and Bampidis, 2016).

1.1 Tropical Livestock Units

Comparing Livestock Species

The major food-producing animals are cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys and other poultry. When comparing different livestock species, each species is converted to livestock units (LSU), which is obtained by converting body weight into metabolic weight (Bw^0.75). The grazing equivalent of one adult dairy cow producing 3000 kg of milk annually, without additional feedstuffs, is used as the reference unit (1 LSU).

A tropical livestock unit (TLU) is a convenient method for quantifying different livestock types and sizes from the tropics. Using the exchange ratio concept, different species with a range of average sizes can be compared to a common unit, the tropical livestock unit (TLU); 1 TLU is one cow with a body weight of 250 kg. TLU values applied to different species vary by country as a function of prevailing production systems, type of breeds and feed requirements.

1.1.1 Livestock unit calculations

Livestock unit coefficients have been compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 2005) and can be used for international comparison (Table 1.1). When estimating livestock units it is assumed that a cow in the US has the highest value and is assigned the value of 1 LSU. The term tropical livestock unit (TLU) is used for livestock raised in the tropics and is used for livestock production system analysis in the tropics. The common TLUs for the tropical regions are cattle = 0.7, sheep = 0.1, goats = 0.1, pigs = 0.2 and chickens = 0.01. The livestock unit coefficients with respect to different age groups in different species is presented in Table 1.2.

Table 1.1. Livestock units coefficients that can be used for international comparisons.

Table 1.2. Livestock unit coefficients with respect to age group and body size in different species.

Type of animal	Age group	Coefficient
Bovine	<1 year of age	0.4
	>1 year of age and <2 years of age	0.7
	Male >2 years of age	1.0
	Heifers >2 years of age	0.8
	Dairy cow	1.0
	Other cows (>2 years of age)	0.8
Sheep & Goat		0.10
Equine		0.80
Pig	Piglet body weight <20 kg	0.027
	Breeding sows >50 kg	0.50
	Other Pigs	0.30
Poultry	Broilers	0.007
	Laying Hens	0.014
	Ostriches	0.350
	Other poultry	0.0350
Rabbit		0.020

Source: Chilonda and Otte (2005).

For example, in North America the TLU of 1 cow is 1 TLU and 1 goat is 0.1 TLU. If you have 3 cows and 20 goats, then the total TLU is 5 (cow: 3 × 1 = 3; goat: 0.1 × 20 = 2; so total is 3 + 2 = 5 TLU). Similarly, the livestock coefficient for different regions will be used for calculation of TLU based on the population numbers of different species.

1.1.2 Animal unit coefficient

The animal unit (AU) is a standard unit used in calculating the relative grazing impact of different classes of livestock (Table 1.3). One AU is defined as a 450 kg beef cow (approximately 1000 lb) with or without a nursing calf, with a daily dry matter forage requirement of 11.8 kg.

Table 1.3. Animal unit coefficients for different types of animals.

Type of animal	Animal unit coefficient
A Dairy Cattle
Mature cow over 1000 lb (450 kg)	1.4
Mature cow under 1000 lb (450 kg)	1.0
Heifer	0.7
Calf	0.2
B Beef Cattle
Slaughter steer or stock cow	1.0
Feeder cattle or heifer	0.7
Cow and calf pair	1.2
Calf	0.2
C Swine
Over 300 lb (136 kg)	0.4
Between 55 and 300 lb (25–136 kg)	0.3
Under 55 lb (25 kg)	0.05
D Horse	1.0
E Sheep and lambs/goats	0.1
F Chickens
Laying hen or broiler (liquid manure system)	0.033
Chicken over 5 lb (dry manure system)	0.005
Chicken under 5 lb (dry m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• About the Book
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Goat Production Challenges to Food Security
• 2 Prospects and Strategies of Genetic Resources
• 3 Reproduction Management
• 4 Nutritional Management
• 5 Health Management
• 6 Herd Management
• 7 Production System Characterization and Development
• 8 Goat Products Supply Chains
• Index
• Cabi
• Back