IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibn/jasjnl/v4y2012i7p148.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

By-Products as Protein Source for Lactating Grasscutters

Author

Listed:
  • G. S. I. Wogar
  • A. A. Ayuk

Abstract

The potential of grasscutters (Thryonomys swinderianus temminck) as a source of animal protein can be exploited with better understanding of its nutrient requirement. An experiment was conducted to determine the protein requirement of lactating grasscutters fed agro-industrial by-products namely; wheat offal and soybean meal. Sixteen 13 months old lactating grasscutters, in groups of four, were randomly allotted to four treatment diets formulated to respectively supply 10, 14, 18 and 22% crude protein (CP). Performance in respect of weight of does at end of lactation, daily weight gain of pups, daily weight gain of doe and litter, weaning weight of pups, feed conversion ratio, and cost to gain ratio, were significantly (P<0.05) higher on the 22% CP diet. The daily weight loss of does and percentage mortality among pups were significantly lower on the 22% CP diet. Though the percentage mortality among pups was significantly (P<0.05) higher, the litter size weaned was significantly (P<0.05) higher on the 18% diet. Given the overall economic importance of low mortality rate in the expansion of farm animal populations and profitability thereof, these results suggest that 22% is the optimum crude protein level for lactating grasscutters, when industrial by-products, soybean meal and wheat offal, are used as dietary supplements.

Suggested Citation

  • G. S. I. Wogar & A. A. Ayuk, 2012. "By-Products as Protein Source for Lactating Grasscutters," Journal of Agricultural Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 4(7), pages 148-148, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:ibn:jasjnl:v:4:y:2012:i:7:p:148
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/download/17635/11820
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/view/17635
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ibn:jasjnl:v:4:y:2012:i:7:p:148. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Canadian Center of Science and Education (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.