Growth Indices and Carcass Quality of WAD Goats Fed Raw Cashew Nut Shell Diets

Abstract

In a sixty three day feeding trial, twenty (20) West African Dwarf (WAD) goats with an average weight of 6.74 ± 0.33 kg were used to evaluate the effect of feeding raw cashew nut shell (RCNS) on growth and carcass characteristics of the animals. The goats were randomly allotted to four (4) dietary groups containing RCNS at 0% (diet A), 5% (diet B), 10% (diet C) and 15% (diet D) with five (5) goats per group. The raw cashew nut shell was sun-dried and crushed to less than 1 mm particle size. The animals were weighed on weekly basis to determine their weight gains. The chemical composition of the diets were also determined. At the end of the feeding trial, three (3) experimental animals from each treatment group were sacrificed and dissected to investigate the whole sale cut, relative organ weight and carcass yield. The organs were collected in a cleaned and labeled bottles containing 10% formalin buffer solution. The weight of whole sale cuts was determined by cutting their respective parts and weighing. The meat: bone ratio was determined by clearly separating the flesh from the bones for each carcass. The flesh and bone was weighed separately and the ratio of the two was determined. Results showed that raw cashew nut shell significantly (P < 0.05) influenced the dressing weight, slaughtered weight and meat: bone ratio. Goats fed diet B had the highest meat: bone ratio (3.21). Wholesale cuts revealed that there was no significant (P > 0.05) difference in all the parameters determined except in the thigh while the result of the relative organ weight showed significant (P < 0.05) difference. Goats fed diet B also had the highest weight gain (3.90kg) and best feed gain ratio (6.50). It can be concluded that up to 5% inclusion level of raw cashew nut shell in the diets of WAD goats improved their growth.