Intrauterine growth rates of the west African dwarf goat and some foetal organs in relation to strategic feed supplementation during pregnancy.

The intrauterine growth rate of West African dwarf (WAD) goats and their foetal brain, heart and liver were studied to provide possible approaches for formulating maternal feeding strategies during pregnancy for minimizing reproductive wastage due to abortion, dystocia and neonatal mortality. Twenty-five pregnant adult WAD does, involving 58 foetuses were studied. The goats were fed a standard farm ration and the foetuses were harvested by caesarean section at 30, 60, 90, 120 and 140 days of gestation. The data were analysed by an exponential growth model subjected to multiple linear regression analysis to obtain the daily growth rate and maximal rate of increase of each variable studied. The results showed that the foetal body, brain, heart and liver weights were significantly related with gestational age (P less than 0.01). The coefficients, b1 and b2, were also significant (P less than 0.01). The variables considered in this study showed different maximum rates of growth and different initial instantaneous growth rates which also decreased at different rates for each day of gestation. The results indicated that feed supplementation in pregnant WAD does should be determined from changes in foetal growth rate in order to minimize reproductive wastage and for economics of animal production, and that high feed supplementation before 70 and after 118 days post-breeding should be avoided.