Productive and physiological responses of West African dwarf goats fed diets containing gmelialeaf meal.

Abstract

West African Dwarf (WAD) goat plays an important socio-economic role, hencethe effect of 82days of feeding Gmelina leaf meal (GLM)diets on feed intake, body weight changeand blood indicesof WAD goats were investigated.36WAD goats averaging 9.04kg in weight were randomly divided into four groups of nine goatseach with three goats constituting a replicate. The groups were randomly assigned four experimental diets (T1, T2, T3, and T4) in a completely randomized design. Results indicatedsignificant (p<0.05) improvementfor body weights and feed conversion ratiofor T2, T3, and T4. There was significant difference (P<0.05) for all the haematological parameters except packed cell volume (PCV). White blood cells (WBC)was improved (p<0.05) with incremental levels of GLM in the diets.Allthe serum biochemical indices showed significant (p<0.05)differencewith glucose and cholesterol concentration reduced(p<0.05) with incremental levels of GLM.It could be concluded thatGLMcan be included in the diets of goats up to 36% without deleterious effects on the performance of WAD goats.