Effects of Balanites Aegyptiaca (del) Seed Cake on Growth and Carcass Performance of Growing Rabbit

A study on growth and carcass performance was conducted to evaluate the effect of Balanites aegyptiaca seed cake meal (BASCM) as a substitute for groundnut cake in the diet of growing rabbit. Five experimental diets were formulated representing the following treatments: T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 respectively. T1 (0% BASCM) was served as the control diet, while T2, T3, T4 and T5 contained 25%, 50% 75% and 100% BASCM respectively. A total of 100 weaner rabbits of mixed breeds were purchased from the National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI), Zaria, Nigeria. The rabbits were fed the control diet during the one week of adjustment period. They were given vitalyte as anti-stress and were dewormed using ivermectin, at the end of one week of adjustment; the rabbits were housed in different hutches and fed their respective experimental diet for one month. Each treatment contained 20 rabbits and these treatments’ (T1-T5) each were replicated in four portions and each portion had fi ve rabbits each. Results showed that all the parameters were signifi cantly different (P<0.05) among the treatment groups. Balanites aegyptiaca seed cake meal can replace groundnut cake at 25% level inclusion without adverse effect on the rabbit physiology. Research Article Effects of Balanites Aegyptiaca (del) Seed Cake on Growth and Carcass Performance of Growing Rabbit Ogori AF1*, Makinde JO2 and Ogori J3 1Department of Home Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Federal University, Gashua, Nigeria 2Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Federal University, Gashua, Nigeria 3Department of Agricultural Education Federal College of Education Kontagora, Nigeria How to cite this article: Ogori AF, Makinde JO, Ogori J. Effects of Balanites Aegyptiaca (del) Seed Cake on Growth and Carcass Performance of Growing Rabbit. Arch Food Nutr Sci. 2018; 2: 010-015. https://doi.org/10.29328/journal.afns.1001012 Introduction Rabbit production in developing countries as a means of alleviating world’s animal protein shortage is on the rise. This is attributed to several advantages of rabbit over other livestock in the tropics Taiwo AA, Adejuyigbe AO, Adebowale AE, Oshatan JS and David OO [1]. It has been reported by Ayinde and Aromolaran [2] that feed accounted for 65.75% of the total cost of rabbit production and therefore recommended research into alternative and cheaper feeds for rabbits in Nigeria. Balanites aegyptiaca is widely grown in Nigeria. Early studies Locket CT, Calvert CC and Grivettic IE [3] showed that Balanites offers the most rapid and lowest means of providing adequate supplies of nutrients to the tropical people and their animals. Works on the chemical and nutritional composition of Balanites however, showed that Balanites tree contains chemical compounds namely saponins, tannins, nitrites, coumarines which could elicit deleterious effects in animals when consumed in large quantities (Hardman and Sofowora, 1972). Balanites aegyptiaca have been reported to have anti-in lamatory and analgesic, anthelmintic, antioxidant, antidiabetic, antinoceptic, hepatoprotective, antibacterial and larvicidal activities in animals (Dubey et al. 2011). The presence of the phytotoxins in Balanites may limit its intensive utilization in diets for man or livestock. Research on process treatments of balanites seed cake have been reported to have less of these deleterious material [4], when roasting soaking pretreatment are employed. Balanite saegyptiaca being a browse plant have been reported to improve the feeding potential of ruminant animals in the semi-arid [5]. Therefore, the objectives *Address for Correspondence: Ogori AF, Department of Home Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Federal University, Gashua, Nigeria, Email: ogorifaraday@gmail.com Submitted: 24 September 2018 Approved: 09 October 2018 Published: 10 October 2018 Copyright: © 2018 Ogori AF, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


Introduction
Rabbit production in developing countries as a means of alleviating world's animal protein shortage is on the rise. This is attributed to several advantages of rabbit over other livestock in the tropics Taiwo AA, Adejuyigbe AO, Adebowale AE, Oshatan JS and David OO [1]. It has been reported by Ayinde and Aromolaran [2] that feed accounted for 65.75% of the total cost of rabbit production and therefore recommended research into alternative and cheaper feeds for rabbits in Nigeria. Balanites aegyptiaca is widely grown in Nigeria. Early studies Locket CT, Calvert CC and Grivettic IE [3] showed that Balanites offers the most rapid and lowest means of providing adequate supplies of nutrients to the tropical people and their animals. Works on the chemical and nutritional composition of Balanites however, showed that Balanites tree contains chemical compounds namely saponins, tannins, nitrites, coumarines which could elicit deleterious effects in animals when consumed in large quantities (Hardman and Sofowora, 1972). Balanites aegyptiaca have been reported to have anti-in lamatory and analgesic, anthelmintic, antioxidant, antidiabetic, antinoceptic, hepatoprotective, antibacterial and larvicidal activities in animals (Dubey et al. 2011). The presence of the phytotoxins in Balanites may limit its intensive utilization in diets for man or livestock. Research on process treatments of balanites seed cake have been reported to have less of these deleterious material [4], when roasting soaking pretreatment are employed. Balanite saegyptiaca being a browse plant have been reported to improve the feeding potential of ruminant animals in the semi-arid [5]. Therefore, the objectives of this Research is to evaluate Growth and Carcass Performance of Growing Rabbit using balanites aeqyptiaca roasted seed cake as a replacement for ground nut cake.

Experimental design
The rabbits were allocated to four lots with ive rabbits each. Each treatment contained 20 rabbits and these treatments' (T 1 -T 5 ) each were replicated in four portions and each portion had ive rabbit. Each treatment (T 1 -T 5) were replicated four times in a completely randomized design (CRD).

Experimental diets
Four experimental diets were formulated and designated as T 1 , T 2 , T 3 , and T 4 respectively. T 1 (control) contain Groundnut cake as its protein source while T 2 , T 3 and T 4 contain,25%, 50% 75% and 100% Balanites seed cake replacing GNC in the diets. The gross composition of the experimental diets is shown in the table 1.

Growth performance study
Rabbits were weighed individually at the beginning of the experiment and, thereafter, weekly for one month duration of the experiment using weighing scale. Weighing was done before the morning feeding. The parameters determined for the evaluation of growth performance were initial weight (g), average weekly feed intake (g), average weekly weight gain (g) and feed conversion ratio. Weight gain for each animal was calculated by subtracting the initial weight (g) from the inal weight (g), while the feed conversion ratio was calculated by dividing the average feed intake (g) by the average weight gain (g) per week.

Carcass evaluation
At the end of the feeding trial, two rabbits per treatment were randomly selected for carcass evaluation. The rabbits were fasted overnight but allowed access to water thus emptying the gut and allow excretion of the undigested feed residue. They were weighed, slaughtered, defurred using lame (singering) and then eviscerated. Individual internal organ (heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, viscera and spleen) were weighed and expressed as percentage of the carcass weight. The dressed carcasses were weighed and dressing percentage was calculated as a percentage of the live weight using the formula.

( )
Carcass weightx 100 Dressing percentage % Live weight = The carcass was subsequently cut into different portions viz: head, tail, feet, shoulder, rack/ribs, loin and hind legs, weighed on sensitive weighing scale and expressed as percentage of the carcass following the standard procedures described by Njidda and Isidahomen [6].

Results and Discussion
The proximate compositions of the raw, roasted cake from Balanites aeqyptiaca before the diet experimentation diets are presented in table 2. Proximate analysis of raw, roasted balanites aegyptica seed cake revealed the presence of dry matter(93%), crude protein(17.7%) crude iber (5.95%), ash (9.10%), nitrogen free extract (49.71%) and energy (4.31%) for raw balanites seed cake lour while roasted cake had dry matter(92.83%), crude protein(19.26%) crude iber (5.20%), ash (10.25%), nitrogen free extract (49.57%) and energy (4.12%). The crude protein and ash values of the roasted cakes values were high and more favorably than the control (raw) seed cake lour. Table 2 revealed phytochemicals in cake from raw (A1) and roasted Balanites seed cakes (A). Alkaloid from roasted (4.20 %), raw cake (29 %) samples shows reduced value however revealing reduce anti -microbial potency for feed use. The saponin content in the A1 and A samples showed a drastic reduction in saponin values. This revealed that in feed formulation, bitter associated compound from Balanites aeqyptiaca may be reduced in roasted cake seeds formulated meals. Cake from roasted Balanites aeqyptiaca seed cake may not cause haemolytic problem, precipitating and coagulation of red blood cells in animal when use as feed ration.The lavonoid values were low for roasted cake (2.03%)compare with the raw or control sample (13.40%). This confers that cake from Balanites aeqyptiaca seed oil may be natural anti-oxidants and also keep feed products longer. Phenolic values were low for roasted (10.40%) than the raw sample (108.05) phenolic content. Roasting drastically reduced phenolic contents of Balanites seed cake hence reducing its anti-nutritional ef icacy. The ability of this cake to inhibits microbial growths or activities may be due to alkaloids content in the cake which have traceable microbial and toxicological inhibition on feed.
The result of the Growth performance of rabbits fed with roasted balaintes seed cake replaced with groundnut cake is presented in table 3. The results showed that all parameters measured were not signi icantly (p<0.05) different at level of inclusions except feed conversion ration Weight is gained as percentage substitution increased signi icantly. Treatment T 2 (25%) is signi icantly higher (p>0.05) compared to the control and the other treated samples. However T 5 (100%) was signi icantly similar with other treatments and treatment T 0 (0%).The observed increase in weight with increased of inclusion of seed cake may be due to high energy in the cake treated compared to the control sample treatment (T 0). Treatment (T 2, 25%) Balanites inclusion gave signi icant value at p>0.05 for daily weight gain. Treatment (T 5, 100%) showed a greater values in weight gain on a daily basis which is signi icantly higher than the treatment T 1 , T 3 and T 4 respectively. The low value observed in Treatments T 1 ,T 3 and T 4 revealed iber interaction with the meal formulation [7][8][9].
The total and daily Feed intake of treatment (T 3, 50% ) had the highest value and this was followed signi icantly by treatment (T 2, 25% ). Treatment T 4 and T 5 showed the lowest total feed intake and daily feed intake ratios respectively. This variation may be due to traces of phytotoxins or other anti-nutritional factors in the cake.
The feed conversion ration depict that treatment (T 4,75% ) is signi icantly (p>0.05) greater than treatment T 1 . This increase was followed by treatment T 5 and T 3 percentage treatment respectively. The energy conversion in Treatment T4 is higher than the other treatments. This conversion and utilization of bio-meal from balanites may be due to low ant-nutritional factor from process approach on the cake as well as inability to obtain enough energy from the percentage inclusion (Smith, 2001).
There was no mortality during the growth evaluations period, this maybe because of the bioactive and anti-microbial ingredient inherent in the cake at the process stage.
The result of the carcass characteristics of rabbit fed with Balanites cake as a replacement with groundnut cake is presented in table 4. There were no signi icant (P<0.05) differences in the parameters measured except treatment T 1 , T 2 . Rabbit live weight showed a signi icant increase in (T 5, 100%) BASM inclusion. This signi icant increase was followed by treatment T 2 m and T 1 . Treatment T 4 revealed low live weight. The low live weight observed may be due to inclusion level and conversion synergy at inclusion and inherent ibre blend utilization [10]. After slaughtering, the carcass weight on treatment T 5 , T 1 and T 2 revealed a signi icant slaughter weight (p>0.05) compare to treatment T 2 and T 3 . The dressed weight revealed that there were no signi icant difference for treatment T 1 , T 2 and T 5 carcass treatments respectively. This trend was also revealed in carcass weight at (p>0.05) signi icant level. The dressing percentage further revealed that T 5 , T 2 were not signi icant at (p>0.05) compared to treatments T 0 , T 1 , T 3 and T 4 respectively . The chest percentage carcass dressed, thigh, lion and hind leg were signi icantly different (p>0.05) fromT 5 treatment. This was followed by treatment T 3 , T 2 and T 1 percentage inclusion treatments. The organ weight from carcass evaluation showed that rabbit fed with treatment T 5 inclusion as well as treatment T 2 and T 1 were signi icantly different. The kidney weight of carcass further revealed that there were no signi icant difference in kidney weight between T 5 and T 2 . The treatments T 5 , T 2 were signi icantly different from treatment T 1 , T 3 and T 4 balanites included samples. This observation may be because of the absorbable nature of protein moieties from the ration treatment compare to treatment T 1 The liver weight showed a high value in treatment T 5 and T 2 . The treatment on T 3 and T 2 are signi icantly different from other samples. The spleen and heart also revealed similar trend in weight except on treatment T 5 and T 2 which revealed no signi icant difference. There exit signi icant difference in spleen and heart for treatment T 1 , T 2 and T 4 spleen and heart carcass weight compared to T 0 and T 3 and T 5 respectively. This may be due to traces of saponin and alkaloid that may not have been deactivated during Balanites cake roasting, improper roasting.

Conclusion
From the study, Balanites aegyptiaca, seed cake showed potentials to replace ground nut cake at 25% inclusion with no negative implication or effect on rabbit growth and carcass performance for growing Rabbit.