Nutritional Evaluation of Baobab (Adansonia Digitata) Seed Meal with Rats
Abstract
Twenty-one day trial was conducted to determine the nutritive value of baobab seed meal processed by soaking in cold water for twenty-four hours. Four diets were formulated. Diet 1 contain 0% baobab seed meal and Diet 2-4 contained baobab seed meal at 33.33%, 66.67% and 100% replacement levels for soybean meal. Sixteen albino rats were used in the study in which four rats were allotted to each dietary treatment. The results showed that the diets have significant effect (P < 0.05) on the performance characteristics. Rats fed 33.33% baobab seed meal had significantly (P < 0.05) better growth response with value of 64.54g for weight gain, feed conversion ratio of 0.34 and protein efficiency ratio of 0.15. Rats fed 66.67% baobab seed meal with values of 45.00g for weight gain, 0.45 for feed conversion ratio and 0.11 for protein efficiency ratio. The least performance was recorded at 100% inclusion level with rats having a weight gain of 22.00g, feed conversion ratio of 0.89 and protein efficiency ratio of 0.05. The dietary treatments had no significant effect (P > 0.05) on the haematological parameters. Rats fed diet 2 have higher numerical values for Hb, RBC, total protein, albumin and urea. The results indicated that soybean meal could be replaced with baobab seed meal at 33.33% level of replacement without any deleterious effect on the performance characteristics and haematological parameter of albino rats.
References
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