Assessment of Haematology and Carcass Indices of Weaned Grass-Cutters Fed Diet Containing Snail Shell

Abstract

Aims: Bone meal and oyster shell are good source of calcium in the diet of livestock but they are expensive hence there is need to look for another source. Snail shell is rich in calcium and could be used to replace other sources of calcium hence the study was designed to determine the effect of inclusion of snail shell (SS) in the diet of grass-cutters on dressing percentage, meat qualities, haematological and serum biochemical indices. 
 Experimental Design: Completely randomized design was used for the study
 Place and Duration of the Study: The study was conducted in the Institute of Agriculture Research and Training, Ibadan, Nigeria for a period of twelve weeks
 Methodology: A total of thirty six weaned grass-cutters of mixed sexes of mean weight 523.45±3.6g were used. Four diets were formulated to contain SS at 0% (SS1) as Control, 50% (SS 2), 75% (SS 3) and 100% (SS 4) as replacement for oyster shell in the diet of grass-cutters. Each dietary treatment was replicated thrice with 3 grass-cutters per replicate in a. Data were collected on dressing percentage, heamoglobin, red blood cells, white blood cells, blood calcium and phosphorus etc.
 Results: The results of the carcass analysis showed that the dressing percentage was not significantly influenced by substituting oyster shell with snail shell in the diet (P>0.05). The results of Haematological and Biochemical indices indicated that the mean red blood corpuscles of the grasscutters were not significantly different from one another and varied between 5.31 and 5.44 106/µ1 (P>0.05). The mean haemoglobin was not significantly influenced by the dietary treatments, the values varied between 12.23 and 12.57g/dl respectively. The mean globulin, calcium and phosphorus levels of the grass-cutters were not significantly influenced by substituting oyster shell with snail shell.
 Conclusion: It could be therefore, concluded that carcass qualities and blood indices were not significantly influenced by the inclusion of varying levels of snails shell as partial or total replacement for Oyster shell in the diet of weaned grass-cutter, hence snail shell could be used as substitute for Oyster shell.