Performance and Haematological Evaluation of Weaner Rabbits Fed Loofah Gourd Seed Meal (Luffa Cylindrica {M.J.Roem}) (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Scarcity of feed resource has been the main limitation in the production of livestock products to meet the animal protein requirements of human and other industrial needs. The conventional cereal and vegetable protein sources being used in animal feeds are under pressure of competition through their use in human diets. The feed cost is about 75% in non-ruminant production out of which protein accounts for about 45% [1, 2]. The conventional vegetable protein sources such as soybean and groundnut cake are very expensive in developing countries like Nigeria due to high exchange rate as many of them still import these commodities. The ban on the use of animal byproducts in poultry diets by the European Union has further put pressure on these vegetable protein sources [3]. Hence the need for research into plants of lesser importance to man that may serve as a veritable source of vegetable protein because of the ever increasing cost of the high quality conventional sources [4, 5]. Animal protein intake in most developing countries has been found to be below the recommended level. Countries of lower income (among which Nigeria was grouped) had been reported to consume 21 kilogramme of meat and 40 kilogramme of milk per capita per year on the average while those in the developed nations of higher income consumed 76 kilogramme of meat and 192 kilogramme of milk in the first half of the 1990s, a trend that has not changed much [6]. This constitutes about 26% contribution to the daily protein allowance of about 65-75 g per adult in developing countries [6]. One of the easy ways of bridging the gap of animal protein consumption is through rabbit production because of its short generation interval and the suitability for landless producers and the relatively lower capital cost than required for poultry or any other livestock [7]. However, rabbit production is faced with the problem of feed availability especially those of vegetable protein origin, hence the focus on the loofah gourd plant. Luffa cylindrica M.J.Roem syn. Luffa aegyptiaca Muel is a crawling plant that grows in the wild and on abandoned building structures and fence walls in towns and villages in Nigeria. It belongs to the family of cucurbitaceae and originated in tropical Asia [8]. It is a climbing annual wild vine with lobed cucumber-like leaves that are dark--green in colouration with rough surface. The plants with yellow flowers bear fruits that are cucumber shaped but larger in size and contain fibrous sponge in which the hard black seeds are enmeshed. Like most oil bearing seeds and legumes, loofah gourd seed have been analyzed to contain some anti-nutritional factors such as tannins, oxalates and phytate [9, 10]. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of the inclusion of the loofah gourd seed meal (LGSM) on the performance of weaner rabbits.