PERFORMANCE OF GROWING MALE ALBINO RATS FED ON MILK REPLACED DIET

摘要

Twenty just weaned healthy male albino rats (28-30 days old, 26.8-27.1 g mean body weight) were randomly divided into two groups of ten each. The concentrate mixtures consisted of crushed wheat, crushed maize, wheat bran, fish meal, mineral mixture and common salt in the ratio of 60, 30, 7, 1, 1.5, 0.5 and 60, 28, 7, 3, 1.5 and 0.5 parts, respectively and Vitablend was given @ 50 mg/kg concentrate mixture. The concentrate mixture were iso-nitrogenous. In group I, rats were fed adlibitum concentrate mixture-1 mixed with equal volume of whole milk (w/v), whereas in group II, rats were fed ad-libitum concentrate mixture-2 mixed with equal volume of water at 10.30 AM daily. Mean daily gain in 14th week study was found to be 0.98 and 1.04 g and FCE was 0.65 and 0.68 in groups I and II, respectively. The DMI (g/d) was 14.5 and 16.2 in respective groups showing no significant difference between the groups. The digestibility of nutrients also did not vary significantly between the 2 groups. The result indicated that diet devoid of milk did not affect the performance of male albino rats in terms of nutrient digestibility and growth rate.