Growth performance, serum thiocyanate and haematological indices of pigs fed whole cassava chips supplemented with brewer's yeast

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the growth performance, serum thiocyanate and haematological indices of pigs fed Whole Cassava Chips (WCC) supplemented with brewer's yeast as substitute to maize in a twelve weeks feeding trial. Forty-eight crossbred growing pigs of Landrace and Hampshire breeds averaging 21.14kg liveweight and approximately 12 wk old were allotted to three dietary treatments with four replicates each of four pigs per replicate. The dietary treatments are Diet 1 which is a maize based Positive control(MB), Diet 2 was a Whole Cassava chips based diet without supplementation Negative control(WCC) while Diet 3 contained whole cassava chips with brewer' s yeast respectively(WCC x BY).Results revealed a significant Average Feed Intake (AFI) ranged from (2.17 to 2.48kg/day). The Pigs fed WCC meal without brewer' s yeast (diet 2) had the highest AFI while pigs fed Diet 1 had the least intake. Daily weight gain increased with brewer' s yeast supplementation (0.400 to 0.463kg). The feed to gain ratio was significantly (p<0.05) affected by the dietary treatments with values ranging from 4.92to 5.90 and best value obtained with pigs fed WCC meal with brewer' s yeast (WCC x BY). The haematological indices such as Packed Cell Volume (PCV), Haemoglobin Concentration (Hb), White Blood Cell (WBC), and Red Blood Cell (RBC) counts obtained for the pigs fed MB and those on diet WCC x BY were significantly (p<0.05) better than those on WCC diet. Serum thiocyanate concentration of pigs fed diet 3 (WCC with brewer' s yeast) increased significantly (0.00 to 1.79mg/100ml). Results showed that supplementing whole cassava chips with 10% brewer' s yeast had a beneficial effect as an additive in diets of growing pigs.Keywords: Blood, Cyanogens, Growth, Nutritional effect