Caprine milk fatty acid responses to dietary dried grape pomace

Including grape pomace in goat diets presents a potentially valuable strategy for enhancing the sustainability of goat farming and mitigating environmental risks. This work aimed to investigate the impact of dietary dried grape pomace (DGP) on milk yield, milk composition and milk fatty acid (FA) profile in goats. Gas chromatography was utilised to obtain an extensive profile of FA in milk fat. Dry matter intake, as well as milk yield and composition were not altered by dietary DGP. Despite the predominance of linoleic acid (LA, 18:2 cis-9,cis-12) in the lipids of DGP and the presence of phenolic compounds, its inclusion in the diet did not negatively affect the quantitatively main groups of FA. Furthermore, there was no significant impact on butyric, caproic, caprylic, and capric acids, the major 18:1 trans isomers, including vaccenic acid (18:1 trans-11), LA, α-linolenic acid (18:3 n-3), and the long chain polyunsaturated n-6 and n-3 FA. However, rumenic acid in milk fat was significantly reduced from 0.36 to 0.30 g/100 g of total fatty acid methyl esters. This study supports that up to 6%, DGP can be safely included in conventional dairy goat diets without compromising the production results or altering to great extent the milk FA profile.