ABSTRACT
16 African giant rats received in four groups over a period of 28 days a diet with a crude protein content of 20% based on groundnut cake (diet 1), palmkernel cake (diet 2), and a diet with a crude protein content of 17% based on palmkernel cake (diet 3), or 24% crude protein based on groundnut cake (diet 4). The best results were obtained by diet 2 with 12.3 g liveweight gain per day and 2.1 g feed/g liveweight gain. Diets 2 and 3 had a significantly higher liveweight gain per gram protein utilized. Diet 1 caused a significantly lower digestibility of the dry matter, the crude protein, the crude fibre, and the nitrogen-free extractive. Diet 2 yielded the most favourable protein source in economic terms.
Subject(s)
Animal Feed , Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena , Arvicolinae/growth & development , Dietary Proteins/metabolism , Animals , Body Weight , Eating , MaleABSTRACT
An experiment is described in which palm-oil, groundnut oil, cottonseed oil and soybean oil were each fed as a 5% dietary supplement to the African giant rat (AGR). 4 AGR were fed each diet from 6-12 weeks of age. The groundnut oil-based diet supported the best liveweight gain of 4.23 g/day, while AGR fed the cottonseed oil diet lost an average weight of 1.42 g/day during the 6-week study. The efficiency of feed utilization was similar for AGR fed on palm-oil and soybean oil diets, but this was significantly (P less than 0.05) better than the 3.24 g feed/g gain obtained for AGR fed on groundnut oil diet. There was an abnormally low feed intake by AGR fed the cottonseed oil diet, and this probably resulted in their poorest performance. In terms of feed conversion efficiency, the results suggest that either palm-oil or soybean oil can be used in the diet of AGR. This observation is not in line with the practice whereby groundnut oil was used in the diet of albino rat.
Subject(s)
Animal Feed , Dietary Fats/administration & dosage , Muridae/growth & development , Oils/administration & dosage , Animals , Animals, Laboratory , Body Weight , Cottonseed Oil/administration & dosage , Evaluation Studies as Topic , Male , Organ Size , Soybean Oil , Spleen/anatomy & histologyABSTRACT
The variations were tested in dietary methionine, protein, and caloric density on the glutamic-oxalacetate transaminase (GOT) and glutamic-pyruvate transaminase (GTP). The GOT was not affected by the protein and methionine levels either in the plasma or liver. Plasma GTP tended to increase (P less than 0.01) between 0.28% and 0.44% methionine levels in experiment I and between 0.26% and 0.50% in experiment 2. In the liver, the GTP activity was similar in both experiments. The interaction between methionine + cystine and protein was significant in their effect on the GTP activity. This enzyme decreased in the plasma with increasing methionine + cystine level, while it increased with increasing protein level. The GTP activity was negatively correlated (r = -0.52) with the energy level in the liver. From the trends of the GTP activity, the minimum and optimum methionine levels in broiler diets can be derived.