High quality cassava peel mash supplemented with direct fed microbial as an alternate source of energy supplement: Effects on performance and blood parameters in growing pig

The feeding trial was carried out to determine the effect of feeding high quality cassava peel mash (HQCP) with or without multi-strain direct fed microbials (DFM) as replacement for maize in the diet of growing pigs on growth, cost benefit, haematology and serum biochemical indices. A total of 90 growing pigs with an initial weight of 25.36±0.87 kg were randomly assigned to five dietary treatments in a 2×2+1 factorial arrangement in a completely randomised design. The factors were 2 levels of HQCP (7.5% and 15%), two DFMinclusions and a control diet with neitherHQCPnorDFM. Pigs on T1 were given corn (40%) based diet without HQCP, T2 had 18.75% of Maize (7.5kg) replaced by HQCP and T3 had 37.5% of total Maize (15kg) replaced byHQCP. The pigs in T4were given same diet as in T2 with addition of multi-strain DFMand animals on T5 were given the same diet with those on T3 with addition of multi-strain DFM microbial. Each treatment group had three replicates with six animals per replicate. No significant (P>0.05) difference was observed in the performance characteristics of the growing pigs among the diets. The body weight gain ranged between 10.97 and 13.56 Kg in T5 and T3, respectively. The least feed conversion ratio of 3.98 was observed in T3 while the highest feed conversion ratio (4.77) was observed in T5.All the haematological and serum biochemical indices examined were not significantly (P>0.05) different among the treatments. There was no significant (P>0.05) effect ofHQCP, DFM or their interaction on all the haematological parameters analysed. There was significant effect of HQCP and DFM interaction on the serum cholesterol (p=0.0062), high density lipoprotein (p=0.05) and low density lipoprotein (p=0.0018). It can be concluded from this study that growing pigs can utilize HQCP up to 15% in their diet without any adverse effect