The aim of this study was to evaluate the pink pepper supplementation (PPS) in young goats concentrate diet on performance parameters. Twenty five female Saanen goats were divided into five groups having five goats in each treatment. In a completely randomized design were given 0%, 15%, 30%, 45% and 60% of pink pepper supplementation in the diet. The increase levels of pink pepper supplementation resulted in a quadratic effect on voluntary intake of dry matter, metabolic weight and daily weight gain (P≤0.05). For voluntary intake of dry matter, the quadratic effect (P≤0.05) revealed minimum point of 67.1 (g kg0.75 dia-1) in the percentage of 59.8% PPS; for metabolic weight a peak of 8. 5kg0.75 in the percentage of 15.5% PPS, and the daily weight gain a peak of 0.107g day-1 in the percentage of 19.6% PPS in the diet. Regarding the effect of PPS on the parasite load, there was a quadratic effect of dietary supplementation of the PPS on egg count per gram of feces (P≤0.05), with minimum point estimated at 1.0log10 at 35.8% of PPS in the diet, representing the limit of PPS response. There was a linear decrease on oocyst count per gram feces with increased levels of PPS 's diet. It was concluded that the supplementation up to 20-30% of pink pepper was able to control of gastrointestinal parasites with maximum animal performance.
tannin; Schinus terebinthifolius Raddi; performance; small ruminant
