A global view of small ruminant production gives a fascinating and truly global insight into the daily lives of vets, livestock keepers and the sheep and goats in their care. Featuring over 400 images and accompanying texts from over 50 countries, this collection was first displayed at the 9th International Sheep Veterinary Congress in Harrogate in 2017.
|
The Newsletter of the E (Kika) de la Garza American Institute for Goat Research Cooperative Extension Program, Langston University
Production loss has many facets. According to the USDA/APHIS NAHMS report entitled "Goat and Kid Predator and Nonpredator Death Loss in the United States, 2015", by the way Mr. Branan is associated with this USDA program, about 500,000 adult and kid goats were lost to all causes (nonpredator and predator) in 2015, which represented 10% of U.S. adult goat inventory and 20% of kids born in 2015. The total value of goat and kid losses was $70 million. Texas had the largest inventory of goats and also had the highest percentage of losses: 36% of U.S. adult goat deaths and 38 % of kid deaths. Nonpredator causes accounted for about three-fourths of all adult goat and kid death losses in the U.S. in 2015. Of known losses due to nonpredator causes, internal parasites were the primary cause, resulting in almost 87,000 goat and kid deaths in 2015. For 2015 death losses due to predators, coyotes and dogs accounted for the highest percentages of goat and kid death losses in 2015. Overall, coyotes and dogs accounted for almost 80,000 goat and kid deaths, or about 65% of all losses due to predators.
 Download the PDF Bruce McGregor, IGA member and former IGA Board member Australia’s rural industries make a fundamental contribution to the Australian economy and way of life Australia’s rural industries make a fundamental contribution to the Australian economy and way of life. In addition to the major industries, numerous new and emerging rural industries bring opportunity, diversity and resilience to rural Australia. The long-term sustainability of the rare natural animal fibre industries is of considerable importance both to the production industries and for economic and social benefits generated by value-adding processing of rare animal fibres in Australia. As these are new industries in Australia, there is substantial scope to improve production efficiency, fibre quality and value adding of these fibres. To assist the development of these new industries this project focussed on two main issues:
About the Author
As a Research Scientist, Dr. Bruce McGregor B.Agr.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D., Advanced Cert. Textile Technology, has focussed on improving the production, fibre quality, processing and comfort properties of rare natural animal fibres including superfine wool, cashmere, mohair and alpaca. This led to Ph.D. studies on the quality of cashmere and its influence on textile materials produced from cashmere and blends with different qualities of superfine wool. Recently he was Program Leader of the Wool Comfort research conducted by the CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation. He has published over 150 scientific research papers plus numerous technical bulletins and advisory publications. Bruce has travelled widely to countries that produce rare natural animal fibres so he could understand the environmental, social and technological conditions in these regions. He has published a number of other reports that are available on the AgriFutures website READ MORE... Written by Luis Dickson, IGA Regional Director for South America
Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrícolas - Venezuela The traditional breeding of goats began in Venezuela a few decades after the colonization by the Spaniards and has survived without many changes since then. The animal used is the Criollo, a very resistant animal that evolved from a mixture of Spanish, African and Canarian breeds introduced more than 200 years ago and that is adapted to the rough semiarid conditions of Venezuela. Breeders also use a very prolific mixture of crosses of Criollo and more recent introduced breeds like French Alpine, Anglo Nubian, Saanen and Majorera.
Production Systems and Sustainability
Reduced survival of lambs from maiden ewes exposed to mature ewes pre-lambing S.M. Robertson, M.B. Allworth, M.A. Friend Vol. 151, p11–15 The suboptimal survival of new-born lambs is a major source of reproductive inefficiency, is often lower in maiden (first-lambing) compared with multiparous ewes, and this may be associated with poor maternal behaviour due to inexperience. This study examined whether the survival of lambs from maiden ewes could be increased by exposing maiden ewes to multiparous lambing ewes in the month before lambing. Pregnant maiden Merino ewes (n = 446) which had been mated at 18 months of age were allocated to three replicates of two treatments. The 2017 Chinese National Sheep and Goat Conference will be held in Shijiazhuang, China on August 18-21, 2017. Shijiazhuang is the capitol city of Hebei Province, a one-and-a-half-hour bullet train ride from Beijing.
The sponsor of the conference Chinese Sheep and Goat Association Supporter of conference International Goat Association. The nutritional intake of the rural households, which is largely characterised by carbohydrates at the expense of protein intake, has the potentials of being improved through the consumption of sheep and goats’ milk. With the widespread of small ruminant keeping by rural households in most developing countries, the study embarked on investigation of possible acceptability of sheep and goats’ milk for consumption by farm families in selected rural communities of Ogun State.
Feeding & Breeding, February 21-22, 2017 
"Sustainable global food security through efficient sheep and goat production" How must small ruminant production efficiency be improved to sustainably meet the needs of the world’s growing human population for food?
Global ruminant livestock production is inherently inefficient, and small ruminant farming is frequently uneconomic, or fails to alleviate poverty in a welfare-friendly manner. Our Ninth International Sheep Veterinary Congress will identify opportunities for improvement in the efficiency of small ruminant production to sustainably meet the needs of the world’s growing population for food. Professor Xu Gangyi, IGA Director of the Board and Professor Zhang Yingjie, IGA Regional Director in Asia hosted a visit by Dr. Christopher D. Lu, Professor of University of Hawaii at Hilo who was in China during in May, 2014 to promote goat research and cooperation and International Goat Association. Dr. Lu is a former president of the International Goat Association (IGA) and Argosy University in Seattle.
Want to read this in Chinese? The Spanish society of sheep and goat (SEOC) returns to celebrate its annual Congress, this time in the historic city of Ourense. In this Edition, the “Auditorio Municipal of Ourense” will host the XXXIX National Conference and XV international.
Following the guideline of previous conferences, but improving year after year, speakers of high professional reputation in the field of small ruminants have been invited, which will give us information on the latest advances in knowledge regarding these species. As a novelty, this year we have introduced a monographic Conference on Mastitis by express request of the sector. Furthermore, a very practical topic is going to be treated in the satellite symposium: “Performing a necropsy”.  Sheep and goat enterprises offer diversification opportunities for small and limited-resource farmers. This Small Ruminant Toolbox was developed by the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) in order to provide a collection of information for small ruminant producers and educators. The Small Ruminant Toolbox includes many publications, presentations and other resources that will be helpful to small ruminant producers.
You can download the Toolbox from Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education. Or download the Small Ruminant Resource Manual Sections include:
|
IGA Blog
The International Goat Association promotes goat research and development for the benefit of humankind, to alleviate poverty, to promote prosperity and to improve the quality of life. Archives
March 2019
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed