Bioevaluation of garlic on growth, haematological and serum characteristics of growing pigs

Abstract

A total of 18 grower pigs aged 70 days were used in an eight weeks feeding trial to evaluate the biological importance of feeding varying dietary levels of sun dried garlic to pigs. The 18 pigs were randomly assigned to three dietary treatments (T₁, T₂ and T₃) with 0, 100 and 200 g of garlic powder incorporated per 100 kg of feed, respectively. Each treatment was replicated twice with three pigs per replicate in a completely randomized design. The pigs received 6% of their body weight as feed whereas water was provided ad libitum. Initial body weights of the pigs were measured at the start of the experiment. Average initial body weight for the treatments was 10 ± 0.65 kg. Subsequently, body weight was measured every week. Other response parameters evaluated included body weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), serum and hematological parameters. Results show that feeding varying dietary levels of sun dried garlic powder to growing pigs had significant effect on all performance indices (final body weight (FBW), body weight gain (BWG), average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI) and feed conversion ratio (feed/gain)) of the pigs (P <0.05). Alanine aminotransferase and bilirubin values of pigs on the test diets showed significantly (P <0.05) lower values than that of the control pigs. Cholesterol value of the test pigs showed marginal reduction than the control pigs. It is concluded that sun dried garlic powder can be used in feed formulation to enhance the growth performance of pigs

Keywords: Bioevaluation, haematological, serum.

African Journal of BiotechnologyVol. 12(25), pp. 4039-4043