Evaluation of Baobab seed cake based diets for growth performance and carcass quality of pig in Central Zone, Tanzania

Abstract

This study was carried out in Central Tanzania and aimed at evaluating the effect of Baobab seed cake (BSC) on growth performance and carcass quality of pigs. Twenty-four (24) weaners of both sexes were involved in the study which lasted for 84 days. Four diets were formulated with BSC replacing sunflower seed cake at four levels of 0, 7, 14 and 21% and allotted to four dietary treatments T1, T2, T3 and T4 respectively, in a completely randomized design. Results showed that the four levels of replacement had no significant effect on body weight gains although T2 outperformed the others in terms of weight gain with 23.19kg whereby T1 (20.54kg) and T3 (20.21kg) had almost similar weights and T4 had the lowest weight gain (15.52kg). The cost of production, carcass weights, and dressing percentages varied significantly (P≤ 0.05) whereby costs of production (in Tshs) were 151,643.28, 162,965.52, 150,820.03 and 117,646.74 for T1, T2, T3 and T4 respectively. Carcass weight and dressing percentages were 23kg, 20.5kg, 18.50kg, 9.50kgs and 55.4, 53.9, 51.4 and 48.7% for T1, T2, T3 and T4 respectively. Histopathology analyses of the carcasses indicated that there were no any detrimental changes resulting from an inclusion of BSC in pig diets thus the pork was fit for human consumption.