Haematological and Biochemical Parameters of Red Sokoto Goats Fed Desert Date (Balanites aegyptiaca) Leaves as Supplement to Urea Treated Maize Stover

Aims: The study was conducted to investigate the effects of feeding urea treated maize stover and graded levels of Balanites aegyptiaca leaves on the haematological and biochemical parameters of Red Sokoto goats.

Study Design: Completely Randomized design.

Place and Duration of Study: Teaching and Research Farm, Department of Animal Science and Range Management, Modibbo Adama University of Technology Yola, Adamawa state, between November 2016 and February 2017.

Methodology: Sixteen (16) Red Sokoto goats weighing 9.36 Kg on average were randomly grouped into four and exposed to four dietary treatments with four replicates: A (control), B (100 g Balanites aegyptiaca), C (200 g Balanites aegyptiaca) and D (300 g Balanites aegyptiaca), with each treatment group having four goats. The experiment lasted for 12 weeks. At the end of the experiment, about 10 ml of blood was drawn from the external jugular vein of the animals. The blood samples collected were used for the haematological and biochemical analysis.

Results: p<0.05 was considered as level of significance. Haemoglobin concentration (g/dl) ranged from 8.9 to 10.4 g/dl. There were no significant differences (P>0.05) between the treatments and T4 had the highest concentration. There were significant differences (P<0.05) observed for packed cell volume which ranged from 25.5 to 38.3%. Significant differences (P<0.05) were also observed for white blood cells (15.6-20.4 ×103/µl), red blood cells (2.3-3.3 ×106/µl), neutrophils (23.9-49.8%), mean corpuscular volume (87.2-117.1 fl) and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (27.2-39.5 g/dl). Monocytes (4-6%) and mean corpuscular haemoglobin (31.8-39.0 pg) had no significant differences (P>0.05) between the treatments. Urea concentration, total protein and albumin ranged from 4.8 to 7.2 mmol/l, 5.6 to 6.8 g/l and 3.0 to 3.4 g/l respectively. There were significant differences (P<0.05) observed for urea concentration but no significant differences (P>0.05) were observed for total protein and albumin.

Conclusion: Supplementation positively influenced the haematology and biochemical parameters of the animals.