Proximate composition and response of growing rabbits fed sundried yam-cassava peel composite meal as replacement for maize

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the effect of replacing maize with sun-dried yam-cassava peel meal on growth performance of growing rabbits in 84-days (12 weeks) feeding trial. Thirty-six (36) weaner rabbits of mixed sex and strain and average initial weight of 500.89g were randomly allotted to six dietary treatments according to live weight in a Complete Randomized Design (CRD). Six dietary treatment were formulated such that, Diet 1 (T1) contained maize and the proportion of maize in diet 1 (T1) was replaced with sundried yam-cassava peel meal (YCPM) mixture in a ratio 6:1 at 20%, 40%, 60% 80% and 100% in diet 2(T2), 3(T3), 4(T4), 5(T5) and 6(T6) respectively. Weighed amounts of feed were served every morning while fresh, cool and clean drinking water was provided ad-libitum throughout the experimental feeding period. Routine management practices were strictly carried out. Proximate composition of YCPM revealed 89.60% dry matter (DM), 10.22% crude protein (CP), 14.29% crude fibre (CF), 1.27% ether extract (EE), 6.25% total ash (TA), 55.98% nitrogen free extract (NFE) and 2416.94kcal/kg metabolizable energy (ME). Results on performance of growing rabbits indicated no significant (P>0.05) difference on all the parameters measured. This suggests that, inclusion of 100%YCPM in diets of growing rabbits has no adverse deleterious effect on performance of growing rabbits.