Aim: To determine the effect of severity of
Haemonchus contortus infection on performance and
economics of raising kids fed on two respective
plane of nutrition.
Materials and Methods:
The feeding trial was conducted for 120 days with
non-descript female kids (3-5 months age). The
kids were randomly allocated into two dietary
treatments having normal protein normal energy (NPNE)
and high protein medium energy (HPME) using
conventional feedstuffs (crushed maize, ground nut
cake, berseem hay and chaffed paddy straw),
fortified with mineral mixture (1%), salt (0.5%)
and vitamin premix (@ 20gq-1 feed), each treatment
having three levels of H. contortus infection (W0,
W500 and W2000) in a 2x3 factorial design. The
study was undertaken to ascertain the performance
and economics of raising kids fed on higher plane
of nutrition.
Results: The total dry matter
intake (DMI: kg) was 41.18, 39.56 and 41.11 in W0,
W500 and W2000 in group HPME; whereas in NPNE the
DMI was 39.66, 38.03 and 35.95 kg in the
respective infection levels. The highest body
weight gain was obtained in HPME than NPNE from
1st to 16th week of experiment. The infected kids
at NPNE gained at a slower rate as compared to the
kids maintained at HPME. The mean percentage of
monocytes, lymphocytes and neutrophils fluctuated
in different ways throughout the experiment
without any significant difference and these cells
were not followed any specific trend. However,
significantly higher (P<0.05) eosinophils count
was recorded in W500 and W2000 of HPME fed kids as
compared to W500 and W2000 of NPNE fed kids. In
the present study the maximum benefit could be
obtained by feeding of HPME diet with W500
infection as compared to other treatments.
Conclusion: The cost of raising kids per kg
meat was worked out to be the most economical at
high plane of nutrition even with the heavy H.
contortus infection.
Keywords: economics,
Haemonchus contortus infection; kids, performance,
plane of nutrition
