Reproductive parameters of young female goats supplemented with mineral salt with or without ionophores

Abstract

We evaluated the effect of adding ionophores to mineral salt on weight gain, age and weight at puberty in young female goats. Thirty-three lambs, which were born during the dry season, were confined, weighed and randomly divided into three treatments (T0 – control, TI and TII after weaning. Mineral salt was available to T0; mineral salt plus 1.5% salinomicine to TI, and mineral salt plus 1.5% sodic monensine to TII. The animals were heavy every 28 days. Two weeks after the beginning of the rainy period, females were accompanied by teaser buck for estrous detection. Four to eight days after heat, the female was weighed and submitted to the laparotomy to evaluation of the ovarian function. The weight earnings and age and weight to the first heat did not differ (P>0.05) among the treatments. Eight females from T0, nine from TI and eight from TII presented clinical heat. The weight of the goats in the puberty was 19.73 ± 0.64 Kg. The age to achieve the puberty was 333.04 ± 11.59 days. Seven females (28.00 %) presented the first clinical heat, anovulatory while nine (36.00%) showed corpus albicans to the first heat. The ovulation rates were 1.00, 1.14 and 1.00 for T0, TI and TII, respectively. In conclusion, the ionophores addition to the mineral salt does not support to the weight earnings, nor the age and weight at puberty in female goats. Keywords: Goat, puberty, reproduction, mineral salt, monensin, salinomycin.