Resumen

SANCHEZ, Cecilia  y  GARCIA DE HERNANDEZ, Mercedes. Utilization of goat cacti (Opuntia sp.) enriched with urea in goats on traditional exploitations of arid areas of Lara state, Venezuela. Zootecnia Trop. [online]. 2006, vol.24, n.4, pp.457-466. ISSN 0798-7269.

With the purpose of evaluating the effect of goat cacti (Opuntia sp.) on the productive behavior of lactating goats, 20 animals were selected from traditional farms of semi-arid areas of Lara state. The goats were assigned randomly to two treatments: 1) Control: grazing of the native vegetation of the arid and semi-arid zones of the tropical thorny mount and very dry tropical forest, and 2) Experimental: grazing + 500 g of goat cacti with 2.5% of urea. The studied variables: gain of weight, body condition (BC), and milk production were evaluated for a period of 75 days. It was used a completely randomized design and weight and milk production variables were analyzed with ANOVA and for BC was used a Kruskall Wallis test, using as covariable the respective variable at the beginning of the test.  After 75 days, the supplementation of goat cacti allowed a tendency to increase the mean weight (P<0.08) 4.3 kg by animal (57.3 g/animal/d), and a reduction of 0.6 kg (-0.8 g/animal/d) for goats with and without supplementation, respectively. On the other hand, the goat body condition was significantly higher (P<0.05) in the supplemented goats (CC: 2.0 vs. 1.5). After 75 days of evaluation, there was an increase (P<0.05) of milk production (296 vs. 184 g/animal/d) in the supplemented group. The goat cacti enriched with urea represents an available alternative in the diet of goat of the arid zones.

Palabras clave : Opuntia sp; urea; goats; productive behavior.