Impact of management practices on milk yield and quality traits in dairy goat farms

In Italy, the dairy goat sector is still behind compared to the dairy cattle industry, with room for improvement in management and efficiency. The aims of this study were (i) to investigate the managerial practices of goat farming in the Veneto region through a survey and (ii) to evaluate their impact on individual milk yield and quality traits. A survey was conducted among goat farms to investigate aspects related to animal health, farm structure, and man agement. These data were matched with test-day records obtained through official routine milk recording tests. The available data included days in milk (DIM), parity, milk yield, as well as fat, protein, casein, and lactose con tent, somatic cell count (SCC), and urea concentration. The final dataset consisted of 16,259 records from 2,345 Alpine and Saanen goats reared in 29 farms. A linear mixed model was used for variance analysis, considering indicators collected through questionnaires, breed, parity and DIM as fixed effects, while goats, herd-test-day and residual as random effect. A stepwise regression was then conducted for each milk trait to discard non-significant effects (p > 0.05). Results provided an overview of dairy goat farms in northeast of Italy in relation to various practices e.g., milk destination, animal feeding, milking routines, and reproduction strategies. In particular, 48% of the farms supplied milk to dairy companies, 38% produced farm-made cheeses, and the remaining farms did both. Regarding feeding, 28% of the farms provided total mixed ration to the goat, while 72% supplied separate forages and concentrates. As for the type of milking apparatus, 66% of the farms were equipped with a pipeline, while 34% used buckets. Milk SCC were influenced by type of milking and milking routine. Milk yield, fat, pro tein and casein content were influenced by the type of feeding and access to pasture, the presence of ventilation systems, heating systems for drinking water, and environmental enrichments. In conclusion, the study indicates that milk production and milk quality can be improved by adopting specific managerial practices. This study received support from the project Vene-To-Goat (CSR 2023-2027, Regione Veneto, Italy)