Blood profiles of West African dwarf (WAD) growing bucks fed varying levels of shea nut cake based rations in Nigeria

Abstract

Shea nut cake (SNC) is one of the agro-industrial by-products that could be used as ruminants feed. A total of 12 West African dwarf young bucks were used in a completely randomized design for an 84-day study to evaluate the blood profiles of goats fed diets of 0 % (T1), 10% (T2) and 20% (T3)SNC. The results revealed that there were slight significant differences in few of the blood parameters measured among the treatments. The haemoglobin, packed cell volume (PCV) and red blood cell ranged from 8.33–9.88 g/dl, 20.95–22.05% and 6.51–7.06 × 10⁶/l respectively. The concentrations of mean corpuscular volume (21.83–22.17 fl), mean corpuscular haemoglobin (7.58–8.50pg) and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (33.00–34.73%) varied significantly (p < 0.05), white blood cell varied from 8.46 to 12.75 µl and lymphocytes (%) ranged from 51.27 to 53.78. For serum biochemistry, values obtained for aspartate aminotransferase and total protein were similar. Cholesterol, alanine amino transferase and albumin varied significantly among the treatment groups. Since the parameters measured were within the normal range for goats’ blood profile, hence, SNC does not have any deleterious effect on the health of the animals. It was concluded that SNC could be incorporated into the diet of goats up to 20% without posing health hazard on the animals.