Replacement of Soyabean meal with Leucaena leucocephala (lam.) leaf meal on Growth Performance and Nutrient Digestibility of Weaned Rabbits

ABSTRACT

Leucaena leucocephala was soaked for 48 hours and sun dried for l2hours it was then incorporated into feed for growing rabbits, the nutrient digestibility of Leucaena leucocephala (LLM) at 0 (control), 50 and 100% replacement of soybean was evaluated and the growth rate of weaned rabbits at different level of inclusion was compared. A total of 15 growing rabbits of different sexes and breeds with initial body weight range of 679±90.55 were randomly distributed into three experimental groups of five (5) rabbits each and they were housed in individual cages using completely randomized design (CRD). The initial body weight of the rabbits was recorded before the commencement of the experiment, all groups were treated equally for 49 days, daily feed intake and weekly weight gain was recorded during the whole experimental period. Total feces were collected daily, weighed individually for three days and the digestibility of each diet was determined. Data collected were subjected to analysis of variance. The result showed that the digestibility of dry matter (DM), crude fibre (CF), crude protein (CF), ether extract (EE), and ash were not significantly (p>0.05) influenced by the level of replacement of Leucaena leucocephala leaf meal (LLM) with soyabean meal (SBM) in rabbit diet. The cost of feed intake was significantly (p>0.05) different with T3 having the lowest cost of total feed intake of 627.55 followed by T2 having 650.66 and T1 having the highest value of 660.53. There were no significant difference (p>0.05) in the growth performance of rabbit among the groups.

Keyword: Rabbit, Leucaena leucocephala leaf meal (LLM), Nutritent digestibility, Growth performance.