Performance and blood profile of young doe rabbits fed diets containing two varieties of composite sweet potato (ipomoea batatas Lam) meal in a palm kernelbased diets

Abstract

Eighty-four does of mixed breeds aged 6-8 weeks, weighing 550–600g were used to
determine the effect of feeding two varieties of composite sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas)
root meal (CSPM) on the haematological and serum biochemical indices of rabbits. The
rabbits were randomly allocated into seven treatments. T1 was the control while T2, T3, T4,
contained 25, 50 and 75 % of maize replaced with CIP440293 CSPM and T5, T6 and T7
contained TIS87/0087 CSPM replaced with 25, 50 and 75 % of maize. The treatments had
four replicates each in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) experiment. The diets
contained 10.6-12.6 % crude fibre, 16.4-17.6 % crude protein and 2610-2788 Kcal/Kg
metabolizable energy. Parameters measured were growth, haematological and serum
biochemical index of the rabbit. The result showed that there were significant (P<0.05)
differences on the final weight gain, daily feed intake, daily weight gain, feed cost and
survival ability of the rabbits. The FCR was not significantly (P>0.05) different across the
dietary treatments. At the end of nine weeks of feeding trial, blood samples were collected
from three rabbits per treatment. The results indicate that the dietary treatments had
significant (P<0.05) influence on the concentrations of white blood cells and eosinophils.
However, there were no significant influence of the diets on other haematological
parameters. Total protein, urea, globulin and creatinine were also not affected (P>0.05) by
the treatment diets but albumin, cholesterol, glucose, aspartate transaminase (AST), alanine
transaminase (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were influenced by the different dietary
treatments. These results show that CSPM of two varieties can be included up 50 % in
growing rabbit diets without adverse effect on haematology and serum indices of rabbits