Effects of dietary replacement of fish meal with crayfish waste meal on the blood profile of rabbits

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the dietary replacement of fish meal (FM) with crayfish waste meal (CWM) on the blood profile of rabbits. A total of sixteen crossbred rabbits of about 10 weeks of age, with an average weight of 4.0±0.06kg were used for the experiment in a 90-day feeding trial. The diets used for the experiment contained graded levels of Crayfish waste meal (CWM)as replacement for fish meal (FM). The rabbits were assigned to four dietary treatments with four rabbits per treatment in a completely randomized design (CRD). Dietary treatments contained 0%, 50%, 75% and 100% crayfish waste meal for diets 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Data collected were packed cell volume (PCV), Red blood cells (RBC), White blood cells (WBC), Mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH) and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC), serum metabolites, total protein, albumin, aspartate amino transferase (AST), alanine amino transferase (ALT) and others. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance and the means were separated using Duncan multiple range test. There were no significant differences (P<0.05) in all the parameters measured for haematology across dietary treatments except in the PCV, RBC and MCV. Rabbits in T2 had higher PCV (25.50%) and RBC (6.61x106 uL) than those in T1, (18.50% and 5.07x106 uL, respectively). The blood biochemical composition showed no significant differences (P<0.05) in Albumin, ALT and creatinine across the dietary treatments. However, total serum protein, globulin, albuminglobulin ratio, AST, urea, glucose and cholesterol of the rabbits were significantly (P<0.05) influenced by the treatments with T4 having significantly higher total protein (12.75g/dl) and globulin (10.10g/dl) than the other treatments. Therefore, the values of haematological and biochemical parameters obtained in this study which were in the normal range and the good health status of the rabbit across the treatments is an indication that cray fish waste meal is nutritionally adequate without any deleterious effect on the animals.