Productive and physiological characteristics of West African dwarf goats fed cassava root sievate-cassava leaf meal based diet

Abstract

West African Dwarf (WAD) goat is an important livestock and its production is indispensable in the country's food chain. The WAD goat is a trypanotolerant breed reared mainly for meat. This breed can be bred all year-round, attains sexual maturity early and moderately prolific; thereby satisfying a part of the meat requirement. However, in Nigeria, scarcity, poor utilization of agro-waste and seasonality in feed availability undermines this goat breed in achieving better performance. Hence, the effect with of feeding cassava root sievate - cassava leaf meal (CRSCLM) diets on the productive and physiological characteristics of WAD goats were investigated for 97 days. Thirty six (36) WAD goats of about 8-10 months of age and averaging 7.19kg in weight were selected from the College flock for this experiment. The goats were randomly divided into four groups of nine animals each with three goats constituting a replicate. Feed intake and body weight changes were recorded accordingly. Blood samples were drawn from each goat on the last day of the trial and evaluated for haematological, biochemical and electrolyte profiles. Daily feed intke, daily weight gain and feed conversion ratio were not (P >0.05) influenced by the treatment diets. The haematological parameters indicated no significant difference (P >0.05) among the treatment groups. There was significant (P <0.05) difference for globulin (23.80-31.40), Creatinine (0.085-1.025) Cholesterol (97.125-120.46) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (13.96-18.22) across the treatment groups. Cholesterol and ALT were significantly (P <0.05) increased with increasing levels of CRSCLM. Globulin and creatinine however did not follow any specific trend with increasing or decreasing levels of CRSCLM. Sodium, potassium and chloride were significantly (P <0.05) different across the treatment groups with sodium being significantly (P <0.05) higher among the treatment groups than the control. The study revealed that CRSCLM in the diet of WAD goats had no deleterious effect on the growth performance and blood indices of WAD goats and could therefore be included in goat diets up to 60%.