Effects Of Dietary Jatropha curcas Meal on Percent Packed Cell Volume, Serum Glucose, Cholesterol and Triglyceride Concentration and Alpha-Amylase Activity of Weaned Fattening Pigs.

Abstract

5 Abstract: In a study of dietary effects of industrially detoxified Jatropha curcas meal (JCM) on Percent Packed Cell Volume (% PCV), Serum Glucose (SG), Serum Cholesterol (SC) and Serum Triglyceride (STG) concentration and Serum Alpha-Amylase Activity (α-AA) on pigs, thirty (15 boars and 15 gilts) eight-week old weaned Large White x Landrace cross breds were used. The pigs were randomly allocated to five dietary treatments (D1, D2, D3, D4 and D5) resulting in three boars and three gilts per dietary treatment. Each pig was individually penned to serve as an experimental unit with mean pig weight per treatment being 16.19 ±2.1Kg. Diets were both iso-nitrogenous and iso-calorific. The D1 group served as the control and was soybean meal (SBM) based. The JCM in treatment diets D2 to D5 substituted 6.25%, 12.5%, 18,75% and 25.0% of the crude protein contribution of the SBM in the diets respectively. All the pigs were fed twice daily on a restricted feeding regime. Water was availed ad libitum. Blood from the pigs was collected by venipuncture once a week for four consecutive weeks and used in the % PCV and serum metabolites determination. Both level of JCM inclusion in the diet and length of exposure to diet significantly (P<0,001) reduced % PCV, SG, SC and STG concentration and α-AA. Packed cell volume % ranged from 43.72%, the highest (P<0.001) for pigs on D1 (control) through 38.35%, 34.83%, 31.28% and 33.14% for pigs on diets D2 through to D5 respectively. The level of SG was highest (P<0.001) for sera from pigs on D1 at 7.43 mmol/L compared to 6.83 mmol/L for those on D5. The level of α-AA declined from 1745.11 U/L for pigs on D1 to 909.28U/L for those on D5. A similar trend was observed for STG (0.78 mmol/L and 0.60 mmol/L for D1 and D5 respectively) and SC concentration although SC did not show any statistically significant differences among the treatment groups. Sex had a significan t effect (P<0.001) on % PCV with boars having a higher % PCV (37.63 % versus 34.89%) compared to gilts. Diet*length of exposure significantly lowered (P<0.05) % PCV only and diet*sex interaction significantly reduced α-AA level and SG concentration . Pigs on Jatropha based diets developed diarrhoea that was persistent. The general decline in serum metabolite levels with an increase in JCM in the diet seems to have been caused by both maldigestion and malabsorption of nutrients from the ileum. The negative presentations indicate that the JCM still contained some toxic principles indicating that processing did not completely detoxify the JCM.