Abstract
This study was conducted to determine the effect of Delonix regia seed meal on the haematological and serum biochemical indices of rabbits. A total of twenty, mixed bred rabbits of both sexes aged between 5 and 6 months with an average initial weight of 1300g were used for the study. Five experimental diets were formulated comprising 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% levels of inclusion of Delonix regia for treatments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively. The animals were divided into 5 groups of 4 rabbits each on a body weight equalization basis. Each group was thereafter randomly assigned to the 5 dietary treatments in a completely randomized design experiment. The feeding trial lasted 12 weeks. At the end of the feeding trial, blood samples were collected from 3 rabbits per treatment for haematology and serum biochemistry analysis respectively. The result of the haematological analysis revealed that the white blood count, red blood count, mean corpuscular volume ranged between 6.27-7.27, 5.30-6.10, 12.00-14.07, 36-41.50 and 64.00-69.00 for treatment 1 to 5 respectively. Which were all within the normal ranges for healthy rabbits. However, lymphocytes, increased significantly (P<0.05) as the level of inclusion increased from treatment 2 to 5 respectively. For the serum biochemical indices, total protein and albumin ranged between 7.24-8.37 and 4.37 -4.90 for treatment 1 to 5 respectively, while Globulin and Albumin increased significantly (P<0.05) as the level of inclusion increased. The use of Delonix regia seed meal up to 20% inclusion level showed no deleterious effect on most of the haematological and serum biochemical components except for the lymphocyte.