Performance Of Weaner Rabbits Fed Graded Levels Of Yam And Sweet Potato Peel Meal In Place Of Maize-Based Diet

ABSTRACT

Performance of weaner rabbits fed graded levels of yam and sweet potato peel meal in place of maize- based diets was investigated 20 weaner rabbits of average weight 389 ±_55g were randomly allocated to 5 dietary treatments. Each treatment having 2 replicates of 2 rabbits per replicate in a completely randomized design (CRD). Diet 1 which was maize -based served as control, while mixture of yam and sweet potato peels (ratio 3:2) quantitatively replaced 20, 30, 40 and 50% of maize meal in diets 2,3,4 and 5 respectively. Each diet was offered ad fib/turn to the rabbits for 56 days. Yam peel meal consists of 89.63% dry matter, 11.17% crude protein, 1.12% Ether -extract, 7.17% crude fibre, 7O.39% nitrogen free extract, 10.15% ash and 3.2lKcal/g gross energy. For sweet potato peel meal, it had dry matter 89.74%, crude protein 6.27%, Ether -extract 1.31%, crude fibre 0.35%, nitrogen free extract 77.13%, ash 4.57% and gross energy 2.99Kcal/g. Anti- nutritional factors like tannin (0.60, 0.22%), saponin ( 0.90, 0.665%), oxalate (1.255, 1.035%) and phytate ( 0.935, O.74%) in yam and sweet potato peels respectively. There was no significant (P< 0.05) difference for the mean values of growth performance among the diets. However Diet 4 has the least feed conversion ratio of 6.56 as opposed to 7.99, 7.29, 7.43 and 7.66 for diets 1, 2, 3 and 5 respectively. There was no significant