Digestibility of Nutrients and Performance of Yearling West African Dwarf Goats Fed Diets Containing Graded Levels of Cashew Nut Shell
Abstract
Sixteen (16) yearling West African dwarf bucks aged about 12 months old, with a weight range of 9.80 - 10.00 kg were used in a feeding trial to evaluate the digestibility and performance of West African dwarf goats, fed graded dietary levels of cashew nutshell as supplement to bamboo leaves. The goats were fed diets containing graded levels of cashew nut shell at 0, 5, 10 and 15% and designated as treatments T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively, at 150 g/goat/day. The goats were fed bamboo leaves at 250 g/goat/day 2 hours before the concentrate was fed while water was served ad libitum. The experiment lasted for 63 days after an adjustment period of 7 days. In the last 14 days of the experiment, the goats were moved into metabolic crates for feacal collections which lasted for fourteen days. Samples of the supplementary diets and bamboo leaves were analyzed for their proximate composition using standard methods. The experimental design was a complete randomized design and data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance using SPSS version 23. The values for all the performance parameters were not significant (P>0.05). The crude fibre digestibility decreased steadily from 52.91% (T1) to 41.75% (T4) and were significantly (p<0.05) different. All the other digestibility parameters were not significantly (p>0.05) different from one another. The dry matter digestibility values ranged from 77.56% (T4) - 86.73 % (T1).it was therefore concluded that the digestibility values obtained indicated that the diets were all suitable for ruminants. 15% level of inclusion of cashew nut shell in supplement for yearling West African dwarf goats is recommended as it enhanced optimal performance and digestibility.
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