Productive and physiological responses of west african dwarf goats fed diets containing gmelia leaf meal

West African Dwarf (WAD) goat plays an important socio-economic role, hence the effect of 82 days of feeding Gmelina leaf meal (GLM) diets on feed intake, body weight change and blood indices of WAD goats were investigated. 36 WAD goats averaging 9.04kg in weight were randomly divided into four groups of nine goats each with three goats constituting a replicate. The groups were randomly assigned four experimental diets (T1, T2, T3, and T4) in a completely randomized design. Results indicated significant (p<0.05) improvement for body weights and feed conversion ratio for T2, T3, and T4. There was significant difference (P<0.05) for all the haematological parameters except packed cell volume (PCV). White blood cells (WBC) was improved (p<0.05) with incremental levels of GLM in the diets. All the serum biochemical indices showed significant (p<0.05) difference with glucose and cholesterol concentration reduced (p<0.05) with incremental levels of GLM. It could be concluded that GLM can be included in the diets of goats up to 36% without deleterious effects on the performance of WAD goats.Keywords: blood chemistry, body weight changes, feed intake, haematology, leaf meal, phytogenic compounds and WAD goats