MILK QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF WAD GOATS FED BIO-CHEMICALLY TREATED Jatropha curcas KERNEL CAKE
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2026-04-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nig. Soc. for Anim. Production
Abstract
In Nigeria, local dairy farmers are faced with production challenges of which nutrition is a major factor
leading to low productivity and poor economy of smallholder farmers and this also affects the value of
the dairy products. There are great potentials of the shrubs and trees which can help to tackle the
challenge of all season availability of pastures and the expensive nature of the conventional feedstuffs;
are impeded by the antinutrients and toxins in the leaves and seeds of most of these shrubs and trees.
Jatropha curcas has a potential as a protein source for the animal industry because of the high crude
protein. The effect of 50% replacement of soybean content with Bio-chemically
treated Jatropha curcas kernel cake on the milk composition and yield of West African Dwarf (WAD)
dams fed cassava-based diet was investigated. Twenty-eight lactating WAD dams of average weight of
13kg ± 0.2 were randomly assigned into five dietary treatments in a Completely Randomized Design
(CRD) layout. Each treatment group consists of seven replicates of lactating does. The does were
individually housed and offered the cassava-based diet ad libitum (A = control, B = 50 mg H 2 0 2 kg -
1 cake, C = 100 mg H 2 0 2 kg -1 cake, D = 150 mg H 2 0 2kg -1 cake) for 171 days. The 50%
replacement of soybean with Bio-chemically treated Jatropha curcas kernel cake had significant
(p≤0.05) effect on the Milk Yield, Protein, Total Solid (TS%) of the milk of the treatments. The
improvement in the total solids in the treatment groups suggest that the microbial protein in the
fermented cake may have been passed into the milk. The ash content of the milk of the treatment group
was also higher than that of the control; this may be due to the increase in the ash content of the
fermented cake. The milk protein of the treatment groups especially the 120mg/kg group. Based on this
result it can be concluded that the inclusion of fermented Jatropha curcas kernel cake at 50% in the diet
of WAD goats enhanced the milk composition of the WAD goats.