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Impact of Amaranthus caudatus leaf meal on blood profile, internal organs and carcass characteristics of rabbit bucks

Wisdom Amaduruonye, Ekuma, B. O. and Agida, C. A.

Some authors have proposed that Amaranthus caudatus leave can enhance the formation of the haemoglobin and improves blood profile. Also, Amaranthus caudatus leave is high in energy, protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, minerals and other trace elements. Thus, a Completely Randomized Design Experiment (CRD) was conducted to investigate the blood profile, internal organs and carcass characteristics of New Zealand White rabbit bucks fed Amaranthus caudatus Leave Meal (ACLM). The treatments designated treatment 1 (T₁), treatment 2 (T₂) and treatment 3 (T₃) having 12 rabbits each were replicated 3 times with 4 rabbits per replicate. The age of the rabbits was 3 to 4 months, and they weighed approximately 2.56 kg. Three diets formulated with ACLM and supplemented at 0, 10 and 20g/kg feed were fed to rabbits in the respective treatments. Data were collected for haematology, serology, internal organs and carcass characteristics of the rabbit bucks. Data collected on different parameters were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results showed that significant increases (P<0.05) were observed on the Red blood cell (T₁ 5.19; T₂ 6.20; T₃  7.88 x10 ⁶/mm³), White blood cell (T₁  6.01; T₂   8.03; T₃  11.32 x10⁹/mm³), total protein (T₁ 5.62; T₂  6.55; T₃ 6.59g/dl), Glucose (T₁ 69.06; T₂ 71.20; T₃ 73.90mg/dl), Urea (T₁ 22.15; T₂ 25.77; T₃ 25.83mmol/l), Heart (T₁ 0.46; T₂ 0.54; T₃ 0.56%), Dressed percentage (T₁ 51.90; T₂ 54.41; T₃ 54.90%), Shoulder (T₁ 3.61; T₂ 4.04; T₃ 4.05%) and Forearm (T₁ 3.13; T₂ 3.49; T₃ 3.44%) following supplementation of ACLM. The serum total cholesterol significantly decreased (T₁ 106.34mg/dl; T₂ 90.05mg/dl and T₃ 95.97mg/dl) as the level of supplementations increased. Thus, supplementation of ACLM at 10g/kg and 20g/kg on the diets of rabbit bucks improved some haematology, serum biochemistry parameters, internal organs and carcass characteristics of the rabbit bucks.