Abstract

Ojebiyi O. O*, Farinu G. O, Babatunde G. M, Togun V. A, Oseni S. O, Shittu M. D. and Amao O. A.

A study was conducted for 12 weeks using sixty crossbred (Newzealand white x Chinchilla) female rabbits to investigate the effect of feeding cassava peel/blood meal (CPBM) mixture (3:2) on their performance. Ten experimental diets were formulated with diets 1 serving as control. Diets 2, 3 and 4 had 10, 20 and 30% inclusion of ash treated CPBM mixture (ATD+BM); diets 5, 6 and 7 had 10, 20 and 30% parboiled CPBM mixture (PAB+BM) while diets 8, 9 and 10 consist of sun dried CPBM mixture (SUD+BM) at 10, 20 and 30% inclusion level, respectively. The rabbits were divided into 10 treatments group of six rabbits each with each rabbit serving as a replicate in a Randomized Complete Block Design in a factorial arrangement. Age and attainment of puberty shows that SUD+BM had the highest number of does attaining puberty at 4 and 6 weeks, ATD+BM had the highest number at 8 weeks while PAB+BM had the highest number at 10 and 12 weeks. The effect of levels of inclusion of CPBM shows that the 10% levels of inclusion had the highest number of does attaining puberty at the 6th week and 8th week while 20% had highest number of rabbits attaining puberty at 4th and 10th week while at the 12th week rabbits on 20% had the highest number. It can be concluded that rabbits on PAB+BM performed better than others and 20% inclusion level was optimum for the attainment of puberty.