ABSTRACT

There has been a gradual increase of the price of feed resources from conventional protein leading to the inadequate supply of animal protein. Leucaena leucocephala (lam) is a leguminous browse plants that can be used in diets to replace or used in combination with protein source conventional feed ingredients. It's use has been imperative/ limited to a very low level of inclusion because of inherent anti - nutritional factor (Mimosine) which interferes with feed utilization and affect the health and production of the animal this study was conducted to determine the effect of replacing soya-bean meal (SBM) with leucaena leaf meal (LLM) in the diets of weaned rabbits. Fifteen weaned rabbits of average initial weight of 600-S00g were allotted to three treatments, each with five replicates in a completely randomized design were used to determine the growth performance and carcass yield of weaned rabbits. The experiment was carried out at the Animal Production and Health Teaching and Research farm, Federal University Oye- Ekiti. The feeding trial lasted for seven weeks. The treatments were diet !(control, without LLM replacement) and diet 2 and 3 where soya-bean meal (SBM) was replaced by 50% and 100% respectively. The result showed that substitution of SBM with LLM did not significantly (P<0.05) influence the growth performance except for the cost of feed intake which was significantly (P<0.05) affected, where treatment 3 has the lowest value and the highest recorded in treatment 1(control). The organ weights were not affected by the experimental diets significantly (P<0.05). The carcass weight and dressing percentage were also not significantly (P<0.05) affected. Result of the study showed that LLM could be used to supplement SBM up to 100% on the diets of weaned rabbits without adverse effect on the rabbits.