Acceptability and compliance of treatment of parasitic infections amongst the nomadic Fulani herdsmen in southeastern Nigeria

Abstract

The protein quality of the raw and processed canavalia ensiformis seeds were studied, using 20 weanling wistar albino rats weighing between 55 to 65 g. In compounding of the test diets, the raw seed, cooked and cooked-defatted seeds were used differently as sources of proteins for raw (RD), cooked (CD) and cooked-defatted (CDD) diets respectively. Two controls, nitrogen-free diet (NFD) and casilan diet (CAD) were also prepared. These were assigned to different groups of test animals for 14 days treatment. The cooked-defatted diet (CDD) and casilan diet (CAD) supported growth while Nitrogen-free diet (NFD), raw diet (RD) and cooked diet (CD) did not support growth. The protein efficiency ratio (PER), net protein utilization (NPU), apparent and true digestibility of the raw diets were very low (-4.01 ± 1.66, 48.35 ± 7.64, 44.90 ± 5.22 and 61.01 ± 5.32 respectively), but improved significantly (p<0.05) when the seeds were cooked and defatted (1.87 ± 0.18, 66.76 ± 6.58, 61.95 ± 14.38 and 76.88 ± 12.78 respectively.


IJOTAFS Vol. 1 (1) 2007: pp. 92-93