Toxicological evaluation of graded levels of freshly harvested bamboo (Bambusa arundinacea) and tridax (Tridax procumbens) leaves on blood chemistry of rabbits

Abstract

Bamboo is a perennial plant, readily available throughout the year and has been reportedly used in feeding livestock such as cattle, horse and sheep but known to possess antioxidant due to the presence of biologically active components groups, the phenolics. Thus the effects of bamboo (Bambusa arundinancea) leaves partially or totally replacing tridax (Tridax procumbens) leaves on blood constituents of rabbits were studied using weaner rabbits in a 70-days experiment. Six diets were formulated such that the control diet (T₁) had 0% leaves (concentrate/formulated feed) while the five other diets were offered at the ratio of 100:0 (T₂), 75:25(T₃), 50:50(T₄), 25:75(T₅) and 0:100(T₆) of freshly harvested B. arundinancea and T. procumbens leaves, respectively. Feeds were offered at 4% of the rabbits'' live weight and apart from the control diet, the five other diets had 2% fixed concentrate and 2% experimental leaves ratio. Thirty-six weaned mixed sex and cross bred rabbits with an average weight of 1075±15.5g were allocated to a completely randomized design with six rabbits per treatment. The feeds were analysed for their antinutritional factors. The rabbits were slaughtered while the blood was harvested and used for the blood constituents. The percent ash was appreciably higher in bamboo than tridax leaves. The bioactive antioxidants flavonoids were detected in the leaves of bamboo and absent in tridax leaves. Both bamboo and tridax leaves had appreciably very low tannin. With exception of neutrophils, lymphocyte, eosinophil, basophil and MCHC, other haematological parameters were significantly (P<0.05) affected. Diets had no effect on total protein, albumin, bilirubin, creatinine and ALP. It is concluded therefore that partial or total replacement of tridax with bamboo leaves had no deleterious effect on the health status of growing rabbits.