The effects of feeding maize cob meal diets on the hematology of grower pigs

Abstract

Effects of dietary levels of maize cob meal based diet (0, 10, 20 and 30%) on hematology of grower pigs were investigated in 24 landrace x large white grower pigs weighing on the average 16.06 kg and aged 63 days. The results indicated that there were no significant difference (p>0.05) between the treatment groups in PCV, hemoglobin concentration (Hb) and red blood cell (RBC) values, among the treatment groups (p>0.05). However, the white blood cell counts (WBC) were higher at 30% but, showed no significant difference (p>0.05) between control (0%) and (20%). Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) values were not significant (p>0.05) when compared with the control values.
It was concluded that maize cob meal based diet has no side effect on the hematology of pigs.

Keywords: Maize cob, pig diet, grower pigs, hematology