ABSTRACT A major challenge to Kenyan Livestock industry today is the inability to produce high quality feeds cheaply. Most of the common sources of protein such as soybean meal, cottonseed cake and fishmeal used in Kenyan feed industry are imported. This makes the final products expensive. To reduce costs, most manufacturers resort to using inferior quality alternatives that result in inferior feeds and leads to slow growing animals. Experiments were conducted to evaluate common beans as an ...
ABSTRACT Indigenous chicken (IC) are the most common poultry in developing world, found in almost every homestead and constitute over 89% of total chicken populations in Kenya. Contributions of IC to economy include source of income, food security and nutrition. The IC productivity is compromised by diseases that contribute to over 50% of economic losses. This study was undertaken to contribute to improved productivity of indigenous chicken (IC) of Kenya through sustainable breeding for di...
Abstract Mushrooms are considered as one of the notable functional foods for human consumption that have been cultivated and gathered for hundreds of years. The usage of mushrooms has expanded to a wide extent not only as food but also in the area of pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. In particular, mushrooms have been appreciated and consumed for both their nutritional value and medicinal properties. Bioactive molecules, particularly polysaccharides (PS) from mushrooms have been the subject...
ABSTRACT Bacteria belonging to the genus bifidobacteria are reported to be the most abundant gut endosymbiotic flora in the intestinal tract of new-born infants, particularly those that have been exclusively breast-fed. This high concentration of this gram-positive anaerobic bacteria has been attributed to the prebiotic and bifidogenic factors present in human breast milk. Currently, there is limited information on the presence of bifidobacteri aspecies in Namibia. The aims of this study wer...
ABSTRACT Fura is a millet-based spontaneously fermented dumpling produced and consumed in parts of West Africa, particularly Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Ghana. From eight (8) traditional fura production sites in northern Ghana, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts were isolated, characterized and identified using genotypic methods. These included (GTG)5-based rep-PCR fingerprinting, sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, multiplex PCR by means of recA gene sequence comparison and sequencing of D1/D2...
ABSTRACT Tiger nut and millet are indigenous crops in Ghana. These crops have been on the radar recently due to their versatile applications in food processing and their increase in consumption by low-income households. The nut is rich in fermentable carbohydrates and resistant starch, rich in fiber and micronutrients, and it is an ideal candidate for synbiotic foods. The objective of this study was to utilize whole tiger nut in dairy-cereal based beverage, make the product synbiotic, and ass...
ABSTRACT The intestinal microbiota is known to affect their host either beneficially or harmfully. Efforts have, therefore, been put into identifying and studying the microbial community in the gastrointestinal tract of livestock. Grasscutter is a promising micro livestock species with a short history of domestication, whose intestinal microflora is yet to be explored. Among the intestinal microflora, lactic acid bacteria confer probiotic benefits and are thus of special interest. This study ...
This study was conducted in order to evaluate the potential bene¢t of Bacillus pumilus and a commercial product (‘Organic Green’TM) as a probiotic in the culture of the tilapia nilotica. Two doses of B. pumilus (106 and 1012 g1 diet fed) and Organic GreenTM (1 and 2 g kg1 diet fed) were used as feed additives and administered for periods of 1 (groups 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively) and 2 (groups 6, 7, 8 and 9 respectively) months; group 1 served as a control. Each group consisted of...
A total of one thousand Oreochromis niloticus held in earthen ponds of the WorldFish Center were used in this study. Forty of these were randomly collected from the ponds and subjected to bacteriological and pathological examination where a variety of 80 bacteria were isolated. Among those 15 bacterial isolates were examined for their probiotic activity through studies performed in vitro and in vivo. Aeromonas hydrophila, Citrobacter freundii, Pseudomonas species and two Gram-positive isola...
The probiotic activity of two bacteria (Bacillus subtilis and Lactobacillus acidophilus) was evaluated by its effect on the immune response of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), beside its protective effect against challenge infections. Furthermore, their in-vitro inhibitory activity was evaluated. The in-vitro antimicrobial assay showed that Bacillus subtilis and Lactobacillus acidophilus inhibited the growth of A. hydrophila. The B. subtilis inhibited the development of P. fluorescen...
This work aimed to investigate the role of some immunostimulants and probiotics in improving the response of overwintered tilapia to Aeromonas hydrophila vaccine. In this study, 15000 Nile tilapia fry (Orechromis niloticus) were collected and divided into five groups. Group 1 was the control, groups 2 to 5 were fed diet supplemented with garlic, Echinacea, Organic GreenTM and Vet-YeastTM respectively for 5 months. Vaccination with A. hydrophila bacteria was done by the end of the feeding e...
INTRODUCTION The term probiotic (opposite of antibiotics) is used when we refer to bacteria associated with beneficial effects on humans and animals. It was invented in the early twentieth century by Nobel Prize winner, Eli Metchnikoff, and introduced in his study, the prolongation of Life. (Metchnikoff, 1907).Metchnikoff has shown since 1907 that Lactobacillus bulgaricus is able to eliminate pathogenic bacteria from the intestinal microflora. The actual introduction of the concept belongs to...
ABSTRACT This study was to determine the effect of probiotics (L. acidophilus) on growth performance, carcass yield, and serum cholesterol level of broiler birds. A total of 128 day – old Anak broiler chicks were used for the study. The birds were randomly divided into four treatment groups T1, T2, T3, and T4 which contained 0.0g/ml, 0.4g/ml, 0.6g/ml and 0.8g/ml L. acidophilus respectively. Thirty-two birds were assigned to each treatment group which was replicated four times with 8 birds p...
ABSTRACT This study which lasted for 12 weeks investigated the effects of garlic and probiotics additives in the diets of grower pigs. A total of sixteen 16 weeks old grower pigs were randomly assigned to four treatments. Each treatment had 2 replicates of 2 pigs per replicate that were housed in a previously cleaned and disinfected pen measuring 3.2m x2.7m with concrete floor, feeding trough and water drinker. Four treatment diets (T1, T2, T3, and T4) were used in a 2x2 factorial arran...
Abstract: Background: Symbiotic interactions between insects and bacteria have been associated with a vast variety of physiological, ecological and evolutionary consequences for the host. A wide range of bacterial communities have been found in association with the oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae), an important pest of cultivated fruit in most regions of the world. We evaluated the diversity of gut bacteria in B. dorsalis specimens from several populati...