Liver Histology of West African Dwarf Rams Administered Aqueous Extracts of Aspilia africana Leaves

Abstract

This 2-phase experiment was conducted to examine the degree of toxicity of Aspilia africana on the liver of West African Dwarf rams. Both phases were Completely Randomized Designed (CRD) experiments with 4 treatments (T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄) with each treatment replicated 3 times. T₁ served as control in both phases. Each treatment had 6 rams with 2 rams/ replicate. In both phases, 24 rams, aged 6 to 9 months, average weight of 4.65kg and 4.85kg for phases 1 and 2, respectively, were used. Rams in phase 1 were administered aqueous A. africana extracts orally at 0, 1000, 2000 and 3000 mg/kg Body Weight (BW) in T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄, respectively, for 64 days. In phase 2, rams received same extract orally at 0, 11000, 12000 and 13000mg/kg BW in T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄, respectively, for 30 days. In both cases, control was administered 10ml of distilled water without the extract. The animals were fed 2kg mixed forages and 500g concentrate throughout the trials. At the end of each phase, 4 rams/group were randomly selected and slaughtered. In both phases, the liver obtained were fixed in 10% formal saline for histological examination. Results in phase 1 showed that liver of rams in all groups had normal histological features, while in phase 2, liver of rams in T₃ and T₄ had mild necrosis of hepatocytes and chronic liver damage, respectively. These show that 12000mg/kg BW-13000mg/kg BW of the extract could be toxic on the liver of West African Dwarf rams.

Keywords: Aspilia africana, aqueous, histology, toxicity, rams.