Carcass and organ weight changes of weaner rabbits fed varying inclusion levels of dehulled African yam bean (Sphenostylis stenocarpa) soaked in wood ash solution

Abstract

A total of thirty weaner rabbits were randomly allocated to five dietary treatments of six rabbits each in a completely randomized design to investigate the carcass yield and organ weight changes of weaner rabbits fed diets containing alkaline-soaked dehulled African yam bean (Sphenostylis stenocarpa) at 0 (control), 5, 10, 15 and 20% levels of inclusion. The rabbits were fed ad libitum for 56 days. The carcass yield showed that live weight, head, fore limbs, hind limbs, breast, back neck, pelt, tail and eviscerated weights were significantly affected (P0.05) difference in weights of liver, gall bladder and spleen across the dietary treatments. Results showed that rabbits on T1 had the highest value of live weight (586.5g), fore limb (13.10%), hind limb (14.50%) and neck (1.02%) while the lowest value of fore limb and hind limb was recorded for rabbits on T5 (6.26). Rabbits on T4 had the highest value of pelt (8.57%), tail (0.50%) and chest (8.82%). The lowest value was recorded for rabbits on T5 (5.36%), T2 (0.38%) and T1 (6.14) respectively. Rabbits on T1 had the lowest value of heart (0.05%), lungs(0.05%) whole intestine (2.50%) and caecum (2.16%) while the highest value of heart (0.46%), whole intestine (18.81%) and caecum (5.46%) was recorded for rabbits on T4 with rabbits on T5 having the highest value of lungs (0.51%). It can be concluded that dehulled AYB soaked in alkaline medium can be fed to weaner rabbits at 5% level of inclusion promoted good carcass yield and without having adverse effects on the internal organs. However, further processing methods needs to be adopted to improve the feeding quality of legume seeds.