Haematological and serum biochemical indices of growing female pigs fed dietary Spondias mombin leaf meal

Abstract

Blood serves as physiological indicator of assessing quality of feed offered to an animal, their health status and body functionality. An experiment was carried out to evaluate the haematological and serum biochemical profiles of growing female pigs fed diets with varying levels of Spondias mombin leaf meal (SMLM). Sixteen growing female pigs weighing 10.5 to 14.0 kg were randomly allotted to four treatments supplemented maize feed ingredient with 0.0, 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5% in two phases of feeding with Spondias mombin leaf meal w/w in a Completely Randomized Design with four animals per treatment and replicated twice. Haematological and serum biochemical parameters were assessed. The results show that Packed Cell Volume (PCV), Red Blood Cell (RBC), Platelets and White Blood Cell (WBC) differentials were similar (p>0.05) in mean values, except for Hb which in T4 was significantly (p<0.05) different from other treatments in Hb (p<0.05). There were similarities in mean values of serum biochemical indices across treatments, except albumin and Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP) values in T3 indicating SMLM inclusion improves serum protein synthesis giving rise to more tissue formation. From this study, supplementation of SMLM up to 5.0% maize in growing female pigs’ diet have no deleterious effect on physiological health status and has potential to improve tissue development of animals.