Growth performance, carcass and organ characteristics of growing rabbits fed graded levels of <i>Moringa oleifera</i> leaf meal in diets

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Department of Animal Science teaching and research farm, Bayero University Kano, to evaluate the effect of feeding graded levels of Moringa oleifera leaf meal (MOLM) in diets on growth performance, carcass and organ characteristics of weaned rabbits. Twenty eight grower rabbits of averagely 975g in weight were allotted into four treatments of seven rabbits each in a completely randomize design. Four isonitrogenous diets (16% CP) were formulated in which MOLM was included at 0, 15, 30 and 45% for treatments 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. The diets were fed to the animals for eight weeks. The result showed that daily weight gain (5.95-13.39g/day) and carcass weight (497.70-727.65g) increased (P<0.05) with increasing levels of MOLM in diets, but dressing percentage (42.49-45.96%) was not affected by dietary treatments. Similarly, the weight of liver (40.35-57.05g), lungs (10.22-11.24g), heart (2.95-4.10g), kidney (8.30-10.70g), kidney fat (11.10-12.65g), small intestine (81.25-99.80g), large intestine (102.45-117.95g), caecum (20.50-30.50g), stomach (90.75-114.65g), spleen (1.00-1.80g) and abdominal fat (7.89-11.25g) characteristics were not different across the treatments. The results indicate that weaned rabbits can utilize Moringa oleifera leaf meal at up to 45% level of inclusion in diets without any deleterious effects on growth performance, carcass yield and organ characteristics.

Carcass Traits and Organoleptic Properties of Weaner Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) Fed Cooked Rubber Seed Meal-based Diets

“…Values obtained for carcass weight and hind limbs, heart, liver, and the lung expressed as percentage of live weight were within the range of values reported by Akinnusi and Alade [10] for rabbits raised on two different housing systems. Values obtained for body weight and weights of carcass, liver, lung, heart, and kidney were also within the range of value reported [11] for weaner rabbits fed graded levels of Moringa oleifera leaf meal.…”

Efficacy of Dietary Moringa Oleifera Leaves Supplementation on Productivity, Carcass Traits, Hemato-Biochemical Parameters, Antioxidants Status and Immune Response in Heat Stressed Growing Rabbits.

“…These results indicated beneficial effects of dietary addition of MODLP (200 mg/kg diet) on growth performance of growing rabbits. These findings are in the same line with the previous published reports on growing rabbits, fed graded levels of MO leaf meal in the diet (Abubakar et al 2015), treated with MO leaf as a natural anti-oxidant (El-Gindy et al, 2017) or aqueous MO leaves extract (El-Kholy et al, 2018a) and MO supplementation (Aljohani and Abduljawad, 2018), who found that MO could play a good impact on growth performance of rabbits. The yielded improvement of productive performance of growing rabbits may be attributed to that MO is rich in amino acids, vitamins and minerals (Faye et al, 2011) and the biological function of MO as a natural growth promoter (El-Badawi et al, 2014).…”

Comportamiento productivo y características de la canal de conejos alimentados con harina de Moringa oleifera

“…Los pesos vivos finales de los animales se corresponden a los valores reportados (entre 2003 y 2236 g) por diversos autores (Sun et al, 2018;Etchu et al, 2017;Caro et al, 2013;Adeniji y Lawal, 2012;Dougnon et al, 2012) para esta etapa y superiores a los valores (entre 1150 y 1902 g) reportados por Nuhu 2010 y Abubakar et al, 2015. La ganancia media diaria de peso de los conejos alimentados con T3 son superiores a las reportadas El efecto positivo de la inclusión de HHMO sobre el peso vivo final y la ganancia media diaria de peso en los conejos, se debe a que las hojas de M. oleifera contienen proteína dietética de excelente calidad (Odetola et al, 2012). Hay una mejora en la eficiencia de utilización de las proteínas en conejos alimentados con M. oleifera, debido a los altos contenidos proteicos y bajos niveles de fibra y lignina en el follaje de esta especie de planta (Abu Afsa et al, 2016) Por otro lado, Nuhu (2010), expresa que la lisina y metionina son aminoácidos esenciales para el crecimiento óptimo de los conejos.…”