PERFORMANCE OF WEANLING ALBINO W S (Ratttrs rattus) FED SOME LOCAL ENERGY AND PROTEIN FEEDSTUFFS

Abstract

A six weeks trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of replacing maize at 50 and 100 % levels with sorghum residue (SR), millet residue (MR), maize offal (MO), and tigernut meal (TGM) while replacing imported fish meal (1FM) at 50 and 100 % levels with local
fish meal (LFM) and local blood meal (LBM) on performance, relative organ weights and nutrient digestibility of rats. Daily feed intake showed no significant variation within the  energy feedstuffs (12.76 g/d - 15.08 g/d) but showed significant (P < 0.05) variations within
protein feedstuffs (11.91 g/d - 15.02 g/d). Daily weight gain, feed conversion ratio and protein efficiency ratio showed significant variations among the test diets while relative organ weights were not significantly affected by dietary treatments. Also, nutrient
divstibility values showed significant (p < 0.05) variations among the test diets, except for ether extract digestibility. Results indicated that maize could be replaced with SR and MO at 50 % level without any significant reduction in growth performance and nutrient
utilisation while LBM at 50 %ireplacement level is comparable to IFM.