Effect of feeding processed and raw cola rostrata (monkey cola) seed meal on growth performance of male wistar albino rats

Abstract

Cereal grains especially maize used in compounding animal feed is scarce and fluctuates both in price and quantity due to high demand for consumption by man. This has led to the search for alternative feedstuffs that have appreciable amount of energy, easily available, cheap and rarely consumed by man. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of feeding processed and raw Cola rostrata seed meal (CRSM) on the performance of male wistar albino rats. Maize was replaced with processed CRSM (either boiled, boiled then fermented, fermented, and toasted). Sixty (60) weanling male albino wistar rats between 6 to 7 weeks of age with an average initial weight of 97.00g - 97.34g were used for this investigation. The rats were randomly divided into six treatment groups (T₁ T₂ T₃ T₄ T₅ T₆), each group was replicated twice with five rats per replicate in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD). T1 serving as the control received maize-based diet while T₂ received boiled CRSM, T₃ received boiled then fermented CRSM and T₄ received fermented CRSM. T₅ and T₆ received toasted and raw CRSM respectively. The feeding experiment lasted for 21 days and data collected were weekly body weight, final body weight, feed intake, body weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein intake (PI) and protein efficiency ratio (PER). The mean weekly body weights varied significantly (P<0.05) among the treatments. The final body weight of the raw seed treatment group (106.20g) was significantly lower than that of the control (119.35,) and the boiled seed (123.05) treatment groups respectively. FCR, PI and PER followed the same trend. T₂ had significantly (p<0.05) superior performance in terms of FCR, PI, & PER (4.00, 10.31 and 2.15) compared with T₆ (7.85, 7.15 and 1.27) respectively. Apart from T₁ (control), rats on T₂ (boiled for 30minutes) had superior performance in terms of the final weight (g), feed intake/ rat/21days (g), weight gain (g), PI (g), FCR and PER than rats fed T₃ T₄ T₅ and T₆ diets. Based on the results of this study, Cola rostrata seed meal processed by boiling for 30minutes can be used as replacement for maize in animal diets without adverse effect on growth performance.

Keywords: Effect; processed/raw Cola rostrata seed meal; rats and performance