The Effects of Hair Colors Differences on the Performance of Etawah Grade Doe

Abstract

The research was conducted to identify the performances of Etawah grade does based on the hair color differences. The materials of the research were consisted of 27 Etawah grade does aged on 1.5-2.0 years old. Basal diets were groundnut leaves and elephant grass, and concentrate feed as additional feed. Twenty seven of Etawah grade does were divided into three treatments based on hair color, black head colors (T1), brown head color (T2) and mixed color (T3), each treatment was consisted of 9 Etawah grade does. Feed was given 3.5% on dry matter based, the ratio between forages and concentrate feed was 60% and 40%. Does were raised for 8 months, feed was offered twice a day. Feed offered was weighted, while the rest was weighted the day after. The doe was mated with buck according to their head color. The data were consisted of feed and nutrient intakes, absolute and relative average daily gain (ADG), feed cost per gain, service per conception, litter size, and kids birth weight. One way analysis of variance was applied to identify the mean differences. The result indicated that brown head color of Etawah grade does had the highest (P<0.05) feed intake (3.35 vs 3.02 vs 2.2 kg/h/d), dry matter intakes (3.11 vs 2.80 vs 2.53 kg/h/d), crude protein intakes (0.59 vs 0.53 vs 0.48 kg/h/d), absolute ADG (90.68 vs 64.34 vs 55.01 g/h/d) and relative ADG (0.26 vs 0.20 vs 0.18%), and the lowest feed cost per gain (15,780.03 vs 19,477.29 vs 18,877.78 IDR/kg) respectively, compared to black and mixed head colors of Etawah grade does. There were no signi cant differences were found on the service per conception, litter size and birth weight of kids. It can be concluded that the brown head color of Etawah grade does had the best performances as indicated by highest feed and nutrient intakes, highest absolute and relative average daily gain and the lowest feed cost per gain.