Effect of toasted castor seed (Ricinus communis) meal (TCSM)-based diets on growth performance of grower rabbits supplemented with or without Quantum blue® enzyme

Abstract

A 42d experiment was conducted using 16 weaner rabbits of live weight of between 400 -900g to investigate the effect of toasted castor seed (Ricinus communis) meal-based diets (TCSM) on growth performance of grower rabbits supplemented with or without Quantum blue® enzyme. Four diets were compounded to be isonitrogenous (15% crude protein) and isocaloric (2800kcal/kg, ME). Treatments T1 and T2 contained 0% TCSM supplemented Quantum blue® at 0 and 100PPM while treatments T3 and T4 contained 30% TCSM and supplemented with the enzyme as in T1 and T2, respectively giving a 2x2 factorial. The animals were randomly allotted to the 4 treatments and each treatment was replicated 4 times. Enzyme supplementation significantly (P<0.05) reduced initial weight (1818.75 vs. 1368.75 g/rabbit) while initial (1862.50 vs. 1325.00 g/rabbit) and final (2112.50 vs. 1204.17 g/rabbit) weights of the rabbits were significantly (P<0.05) reduced with the inclusion of TCSM. The interactive effects of enzyme supplementation and TCSM did not affect (P>0.05) all the parameters evaluated. Rabbit farmers can adopt toasting method of processing castor seeds and could include up to 30% TCSM especially when supplemented with Quantum blue® in the diets of grower rabbits without affecting their growth rate.