Characteristic of the components and the metabolism mechanism of goat colostrum: a review

Colostrum contains large number of nutrients that promote the growth, differentiation, and biological functions for goat kids early somatic cells, which is crucial to meet the nutritional demands, immune function, and the health of goat kids later growth. Great attention has been given not only to nutritional ingredient differences between colostrum and normal milk, but also to function differences, and their effect on the physical and sensory properties of goat kid's growth performance and health status. This paper reviews the research progress of goat colostrum in recent years, mainly including the colostrum yield, components, i.e., proteins, lactose, and immunoglobulin, as well as the influence factor, i.e., number of lactation and littler size, nutrition during the gestation, and breeding environment. In addition, this review aims to summarize the synthesis and secretion mechanisms, and the digestion and absorption mechanism of goat colostrum. We conclude that even though the composition and physicochemical properties of goat colostrum are highly dynamic and variable, and the digestion and absorption mechanism has not been made fully clear until now, direct feed microbial (DFM) may be a promising alternative for improving the quality of colostrum that should be further explored for their practical usage.