Sanusi GO, Aina ABJ, Oyeniyi IO, Fadairo TA, Akintunde OO, Ademolu OJ, Tiamiyu AE

• access_time12 July, 2025

  subjectCategory: Agricultural Sciences

• The study was carried out to evaluate the voluntary intake, growth rate, apparent nutrient digestibility and blood constituents of West African Dwarf bucks subjected to three diets: concentrate, fresh plantain leaves and dry plantain leaves in a Completely Randomized Design. Thirty (30) West African Dwarf bucks within the ages of 89 months with mean weight of 8.15 kg±0.01 were used for this study. The experiment lasted for 91 days (including 7 days of adjustment period and 84 days for feeding trial). Results showed that there were significant differences (p < 0.05) in the daily feed intake (g) and feed conversion ratio, total cholesterol and glucose among the bucks. However, there were no significant (p > 0.05) deference in digestibility co-efficient and haematological parameters of the animals in their treatment groups. Bucks fed dry plantain leaves showed the highest daily weight gain of 29.55g/day followed by fresh plantain leaves (28.42 g/day) and concentrate (21.28 g/day). The inclusion of plantain leaves as basal forage in the diets of weaned bucks greatly enhanced growth and thus recommended for use by poor resource farmers.
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