International Journal of Agriculture Sciences ISSN: 0975-3710&E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 8, Issue 52, 2016 || Bioinfo Publications || 2598 Research Article BACKYARD GOAT FARM PERFORMANCE IN THE PHILIPPINES (2008-2010; 2013-2015) BARCELO P.M. 1* , ASUNCION A.T.², CASTILLO J. J. 2 , CRUZ E.M. 3 , ROSARIO N. DEL 3 , ORDEN M. E. 3 , HIPE R. 4 , INTONG R. 5 , PEPITO J. 5 , NAANEP N. 6 , EJERCITO R. 6 , VILLAR E.C. 7 AND ALO A.M. 7 1 Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University, Bacnotan, La Union, Philippines. 2 Department of Agriculture-Regional Field Office 02, Upi, Gamu, Isabela, Philippines. 3 Central Luzon State University, Science City of Munoz, Nueva Ecija, Philippines. 4 Department of Agriculture-Region 08, Tacloban City, Philippines. 5 Central Mindanao University, Musuan, Bukidnon, Philippines. 6 Sultan Kudarat State University, Tacurong, Sultan Kudarat, Philippines. 7 Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, Forestry and Natural Resources Research Council and Development, Los Banos, Lagu na, Philippines. *Corresponding Author: Email- barcelopatricia@rocketmail.com Received: July 31, 2016; Revised: September 17, 2016; Accepted: September 18, 2016; Published: October 30, 2016 Citation: Barcelo P.M., et al., (2016) Backyard Goat Farm Performance in the Philippines (2008-2010; 2013-2015). International Journal of Agriculture Sciences, ISSN: 0975-3710 & E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 8, Issue 52, pp.-2598-2600. Copyright: Copyright©2016 Barcelo P.M., et al., This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credit ed. Academic Editor / Reviewer: Dr K. K. Hadiya Introduction Over the years, the popularity of goat raising in the Philippines as an economic enterprise intensifies as evidenced by the efforts to improve its production and the indulgence of affluent entrepreneurs making goat raising as an investment. Consumers also realized the benefits of eating chevon [3] due to its lower saturated fat and cholesterol but higher protein compared to the other meats. Goat inventory in the Philippines was 3.67 Million heads [4] with 98% of goats found at the backyard level. Furthermore, slaughtering of goats was at 108% higher than the kids born [4] indicating that goat raising is a viable enterprise in the Philippines. International Journal of Agriculture Sciences ISSN: 0975-3710&E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 8, Issue 52, 2016, pp.-2598-2600. Available online at http://www.bioinfopublication.org/jouarchive.php?opt=&jouid=BPJ0000217 Abstract- Goat raising is gaining popularity as an enterprise in the Philippines, however, very few have taken the initiative to gather data from ba ckyard goat farmers and to analyze their farm performance to understand the viability of the enterprise. In 2008-2010, a research program that was conducted on a national level entitled Goat Farm Production Performance in the Philippines [1] was tasked to establish a national goat farm production performance monitoring system for goat farms to gather and evaluate productive and reproductive performances of locally raised goats without introducing management interventions to the raisers. In 2013 -2015, the farmers were trained the technologies of goat production using the Farmer Livestock School-Goat Enterprise Management (FLS-GEM) extension modality primarily to determine the effects of the management interventions on the performance of the goat farms. The Farmer Livestock School -Goat Enterprise Management Modality is an extension modality in which the farmers were trained the goat management interventions by attending barangay classes at their most convenient time. The data were gathered from purposively selected goat raisers with five or more does. Monthly monitoring of the data on produ ctive and reproductive performances were done, analyzed and results were fed-back to the goat raisers. In 2013-2015, in 2008-10 the farmers were trained the management interventions using the FLS- GEM extension modality. Initially, a curriculum was developed by a group of experts in the Philippines. This curriculum served as the material in training the 21 national facilitators coming from Regions 1, 2, 3,8, 10 and 12 in the Philippines. After the national training, each set of regional trainers trained 25 regional facilitators the way they were trained during the national training. These trained regional trainers in turn trained at least 25 farmers on a scheduled basis based on the most convenient time of the farmers, preferably once a week for 4 hours. The training modality allows simultaneous trainings in the six regions, thus allowing more trainees at a specific time. To assess the effects of the extension modality, 10% of the trained farmers served as cooperators in which monthly moni toring of their goat farm performance was done. Based from the data gathered, with technological interventions adopted by the backyard goat raisers who had undergone the FLS -GEM training, conception rate increased from 75%(2008-2010 data) to 82%(2013-2015 data) ; kidding interval was shortened from 251 days to 246.85 days, thereby increasing kidding index from 1.45 to 1.48 kiddings per doe/year. With the inclusion of proper feeding and health regimen, pre-weaning mortality significantly dropped from 21.4 % to 1.60% in the participating sites. Considering the infusion of quality genetic materials either through Artificial Insemination or through natural breeding, there was an increase in average birth weight from 1.7 kg to 2.12 kg and slaughter weight from 16.5 kg to 22.30 kg. In addition, the farmers were able to engage in goat enterprises as waste utilization converted into organic fertilizer, forage enterprise and there were artificial inseminators trained. Based on these findings, it is concluded that backyard goat farm performance significantly improved with appropriate trainings and technology interventions through the Farmer Livestock School- Goat Enterprise extension modality. It is therefore recommended that the FLS-GEM modality be used in training goat raisers to reach more goat raisers at a specific period. Keywords- Backyard goat farm performance, Monitoring data, Farmer Livestock Goat Enterprise Management, Training.