ABSTRACT

Eight weeks trial was conducted to study the effect of dietary inclusion of autoclaved castor seed meal on growth performance, body composition and haematology of Clarias gariepinus fingerlings. 150 Clarias gariepinus fingerlings were divided randomly into 5 groups of ten fish/tank each to five treatments. The experimental design is a complete randomize design in which there were three replicate for each of the treatment. The experimental diet which were designated 0%, 10%,15%, 20%, and 25%, respectively were isonitrogenous (40% C.P) and isocaloric (2881 Kcal/kg). Fishmeal, soybean meal, and groundnut cake was used as control (diet 1) protein source. The result shows significant difference (p<0.05) among the treatments in respect to growth rate, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, and specific growth rate. The result of the growth performance indicates that the final body weight, total weight gain, daily weight gain, standard growth rate, protein efficiency ratio, were significantly (p<0.05) higher in the control group (CTRL) compared to CSM10, CSM15, CSM20, and CSM25. The total feed intake and the daily feed intake were significantly (p<0.05) higher in control compared to all other treatments, while the feed conversion ratio was significantly lower (p<0.05) in control than the remaining diet. Crude protein, and moisture of fish fed the control were significantly higher (p<0.05) than the fish fed the CSM10, CSM15, CSM20 and CSM 25, while for the Fat content, ASH and nitrogen free extract of the fish fed CSM25 was significantly higher than CSM20, CSM15, CSM10 and control respectively. The results of the haematological parameters showed that the packed cell volume (PCV) and haemoglobin (Hb), Red Blood Cell, Mean Corpuscular Volume, Mean corpuscular haemoglobin, Mean corpuscular Haemoglobin concentration, Neutrophils values were significantly (P<0.05) higher in control compared to CSM10, CSM15, CSM20, and CSM25, but the parked cell volume, Red blood cell, and mean corpuscular volume were similar (p>0.05) for CSM15 and CSM20, CSM20 and CSM25 and CSM15 and CSM20 respectively, mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration of the fish shows similar effect (p>0.05) for CSM10, CSM15, CSM20 and CSM25 but was however significantly different (p<0.05) from the control, while in white blood cell and lymphocyte there were significant difference (p<0.05) in the CSM25 and the lowest in control respectively. Hence the inclusion of 10% castor seed meal may give a satisfactory performance if the seed is well treated and dehulled properly.

Table of Contents

Abstract vii

Table of Contents ix

List of Tables xii

Chapter One 1

1.0 Introduction 1

1.1 Objective 3

Chapter Two 4

2.0 Literature review 4

2.1 History and origin of castor plant 4

2.1.1 Description of castor oil plant 4

2.2.1 Composition and nutritive value of castor seed meal 5

2.2.2 Protein, amino acid and mineral composition of castor seed meal 5

2.2.3 Oil composition 10

2.3 Utilization of castor seed cake in animal nutrition 12

2.4 Factors affecting the nutritional quality of castor seeds and castor seed cake 12

2.4.1 Anti nutritional factors

2.4.1.1 Ricin

2.4.1.2 Ricinine 14

2.4.1.3 Allergen 14

2.4.2 Processing of castor seed meal 14

2.4.2.1 Autoclaving 15

2.4.2.2 Lye treatment 15

2.4.3.3 Fermentation 16

2.4.2.4 Processing of castor seeds and castor seed cake by boiling 16

2.5.1 Protein and amino acid requirement of Catfish 16

2.5.2 Energy requirement of Clarias gaiepinus fingerlings 17

2.5.3 Energy and protein of Clarias gariepinus fingerlings 18

2.6 Haematology of Clarias gariepinus 18

2.6.1 Hemoglobin (Hb) 19

2.6.2 White blood cell differential 19

Chapter Three 21

3.0 Materials and methods 21

3.1 Dehulling of seed 21

3.1.1 Castor seed meal Processing 21

3.1.2 Oil extraction process 22

3.1.3 Preparation of castor cake for feeding trials/ detoxification 22

3.2 Diet formulation

3.3 Fish and sample collection

3.4 Experimental design

3.5 Experimental procedure

3.5.1 Feeding trial 26

3.5.2 Experimental condition 26

3.6 Chemical analysis 26

3.7 Growth and nutritional analysis 27

3.8 Haematology 28

3.9 Statistic analysis 29

Chapter Four 30

4.0 Results 30

4.1 Proximate composition of experimental diet 30

4.2 Effect of castor seed meal based diet on growth performance of Clarias gariepinus 32

4.3 Proximate composition of fish (Clarias gariepinus) fed experimental diet after 8 weeks 34

4.4 Haematological analysis of fish (Clarias gariepinus) fingerlings fed castor seed meal

Chapter Five

5.1 Discussion

5.2 Conclusion

5.3 Recommendations References APPENDIXES