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JOURNAL OF ANIMAL AND VETERINARY ADVANCES, vol.9, no.18, pp.2382-2385, 2010 (SCI-Expanded)
This study examined the effects of early castration on slaughter and carcass characteristics of Norduz goat male kids Animal material consisted of 25 male kids divided into two groups-an early castrated group (n = 13) and a control group (n = 12) All animals were weaned at 3 months and then subjected to an 85 days fattening period Kids were fed with a ration of concentrate (16 6% crude protein and 10 6 MJ kg(-1) DM ME) ad libitum +200 g sainfoin per kid twice daily At the end of the fattening period, eight kids from each group were slaughtered to determine carcass characteristics Significant differences (p<0 01) were found in the slaughter weights of castrated (24 84 +/- 0 465 kg) and intact (3041 +/- 1 061 kg) kids Cold carcass weights of castrated (9 40 +/- 0 230 kg) and intact (11 53 +/- 0 544 kg) kids also varied significantly (p<0 05) Muscle, bone, subcutaneous fat and intermuscular fat percentages in the chop region for intact and castrated groups were, respectively, 43 15 +/- 0 822 and 41 48 +/- 0 579%, 24 60 +/- 1 026 and 26 84 +/- 0 750%, 7 66 +/- 0 711 and 10 21 +/- 0 615%, 7 48 +/- 0 506 and 7 25 +/- 0 693% It was concluded that early castration had no significant on the carcass characteristics of Norduz male kids