Effect of Differently Processed False Yam (Icacina tricantha) Tuber Meal on the Growth Performance of Unsexed Albino Rats

Abstract

The experiment was carried out at the Animal Science Laboratory of the Livestock Section, Teaching and Research Farm, Ambrose Alli University to evaluate the effect of feeding differently processed false yam tuber meal on the growth performance of Albino rats. Fresh tubers of Icacina trichantha were collected from Ekpoma environ. The tubers were washed, chopped into small pieces and were differently processed by oven drying, sun-drying as well parboiling and sun-drying. All processed tubers were then milled and aliquot was collected and were labeled before taken to the laboratory for proximate analysis. The thirty six mixed sexed rats of an average age of 6 weeks that were randomly allotted to four dietary treatment namely: Corn starch-egg mixture as the control diet while diet 2, 3 and 4 were Oven dried Icacina tricantha, Sun dried Icacina tricantha and parboiled-sun dried Icacina tricantha in a completely Randomized Design with 3 replicates of nine rats per treatment. Weight changes and feed consumption were recorded weekly, while weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein efficiency ratio (PER) were estimated to assess the growth performance of the rats. Growth performance showed that live weight, daily and weekly feed intake, daily and weekly weight gain were significantly (p<0.05) higher among rats fed sundried false yam comparable to control. It is therefore concluded that Sundried false Yam (Icacina thricantha) meal could serve as an excellent energy source in live stock feeding based on the findings from this preliminary study using Albino rat.