Morphological and volumetric characteristics of goat's stomach in different milk feeding periods

Abstract

The experiment was carried out at the Campus IV of the UFPB aiming at evaluating the morphological and volumetrics features of the stomach of goats. To study the effects of different periods of milk feeding, 42 alpine crossbred (21 males an females) were used and distributed in three treatments: T1-weaning at 56 days old; T2-weaning at 70 and T3-weaning at 84 days old. The liquid supplied to 35 days old was milk goat's at a sucking in the afternoon. The animals (males) to were killed evaluate the ruminal development and papillae in accordance to periods (183 days age). The mean weight to the respective treatments at the 182 days old were: T1= 19.3b, T2= 20.3ab e T3= 21.4ª kg. It was observed in the forestomach evaluation a greater ruminal development in the 56 days weaned animal who had papillee thicker indicating an the epithelium maturation.