Haematological and serum biochemical indices of pre-pubertal male rabbits fed with graded level of blood-wild sunflower forage meal mixture

Abstract

The effects of feeding graded levels of blood wild sunflower forage meal mixture (BWSFM) on haematological and serum biochemical parameters in rabbit were studied. Thirty-two (32) cross-bred (New Zealand-white X Chinchilla) male weaner rabbits aged between 6 and 9 weeks were randomly divided after weight balancing into four groups of eight rabbits per group and each rabbit served as replicate in a complete randomized design. Four diets were formulated in which diet 1 the control, was containing no BWSFM mixture, while diets 2, 3 and 4 had graded levels of 5, 10 and 15% BWSFM mixture respectively. The rabbits were fed with the experimental diets for 12 weeks. The results showed that though the final weight of the rabbits in the different groups were not significantly affected by the inclusion of the test ingredient, the packed cell volume (PCV), hemoglobin content (Hb), red blood cell (RBC) count, white blood cell (WBC) count, as well as the lymphocytes and serum alanine aminotransaminase (ALT) were significantly (P < 0.05) affected by the treatments. It was concluded that inclusion of blood/wild sunflower forage meal mixture up to 15% was well tolerated by pre-pubertal male rabbits without any adverse health condition.

Keyword: Pre-pubertal, rabbits, packed cell volume, alanine aminotransaminase, blood/wild sunflower forage meal mixture