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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Author(s)
Victoria Attoh-Kotoku1, Dagbui Kofi Emmanuel2, Donkoh Armstrong1, 3, Atuahene Comfort Charity1 and Akpadie Winfred1
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DOI:10.17265/2161-6256/2015.07.007
Affiliation(s)
1. Department of Animal Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
2. Directorate of Animal Production, Nungua Livestock Breeding Station, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, P.O. Box 5779, Accra-North, Ghana
3. College of Agriculture and Integrated Development Studies, Cuttington University, P.O. Box 10-0277, Suakoko, Bong County, Liberia
ABSTRACT
An 8-week feeding trial was
conducted to assess the effect of soybean meal (SBM), groundnut meal (GNM) and blood meal (BM) addition in diets
with or without (1%) fishmeal on the performance, N-digestibility and cost of
production of growing grasscutters. Fifty-four grasscutters (9-week-old) of mixed sexes were randomly assigned to six dietary
treatments, using a completely randomized design
(CRD) in a 2 ´ 3 factorial arrangement, with three grasscutters per treatment and three replicates each. Treatments 1-3 (T1-T3) contained no fishmeal, whilst treatments 4-6 (T4-T6) had 1%
fishmeal added. The diets were formulated to be isocaloric and isonitrogenous.
N-digestibility was significantly high for SBM diets with or without fishmeal, 83.91% and 82.19%, respectively,
followed by BM diets. Average daily gain (ADG) was significantly (P < 0.05) high (12.95 g)
for BM diet without fishmeal. Feed cost per kg diet was the lowest (US$0.195)
for the same BM diet. The results indicated that the inclusion of SBM and BM in the diet of
grasscutters with or without 1% fishmeal could improve performance and it may
be the most economical for feeding BM in the
diet without fishmeal.
KEYWORDS
Alternative feed, digestibility, economic viability, fishmeal, greater cane rat, protein sources.
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