Open AccessPERFORMANCE AND NUTRIENT DIGESTIBILITY OF RABBITS FED FERMENTED AND UNFERMENTED COCOA POD HUSK
Author(s) -
OO Adejinmi,
R. A. Hamzat,
J. B. Fapohunda
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
nigerian journal of animal production
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 0331-2062
DOI - 10.51791/njap.v34i1.2422
Subject(s) - husk , fermentation , food science , point of delivery , nutrient , completely randomized design , body weight , biology , chemistry , zoology , agronomy , botany , endocrinology , ecology
This study was designed to investigate the performance and nutrient digestibility of rabbits fed cocoa pod husk (CPH). Thirty weaner rabbits of about five weeks old were used for the study. They were allotted to five treatment consisting of three replicates of two rabbits each. Diet T, served as the control with 0%CPH, Diet T2 and T3 contained 30% unfermented and fermented CPH respectively. The experiment lasted for ten (10) weeks. The results showed a significant increase (P < 0.05) in feed intake, body weight gain and feed conversion ration of rabbits fed increasing levels of inclusion of fermented and unfermented CPH in experimental diets. The apparent nutrient digestibility also improved with increasing levels of fermented and unfermented CPH in the diets. However, rabbits performed better on the fermented CPH than the unfermented CPH based diets.