No abstract

The study investigated the effect of Vernonia amygdalina (VA) leaf supplementation on organ weight and gut microbial count of Thryonomys swinderianus. Thirty-six weaner grasscutters of mixed sexes were allotted randomly to six treatments (A, B, C, D, E, and F) in a completely randomized design for a nutritional trial of 8 weeks. At the end of the experiment, caecum, kidney, liver, lungs, intestine and the heart were excised to determine their weights and the intestinal/caecal contents and scrapings were obtained to determine the fungi and bacteria population. Data collected were analyzed using one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The VA supplementation had significant effect (p<0.05) on relative organs with a range of 0.47 – 0.60%, 0.40 – 0.62%, 1.20 – 2.83%, 0.52 - 0.58%, 5.53 – 12.91%, 714.00 – 960.00g, 494.00 – 781.00g and 479.00 – 747.00g for lungs, heart, liver, kidney, intestine, live weight, eviscerated and carcass weight of the grasscutter respectively, with a smaller relative weight of the kidney from 3g/kg VA supplementation upwards. The serum biochemical parameters were also significantly affected by VA supplementation. There was a decrease in alkaline phosphatase, alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase but were within the normal range required for rodents. Total protein and Albumin were significantly improved by the supplement while total bilirubin was variable with a significant decrease prior to 4gVA supplementation. Microbial populations in the intestine and ceacum were reduced to varying extent by the supplement. It could be concluded that VA supplementation reduced intestinal and caecal microbes and increased the live and carcass weights but decreased relative weights of selected organs in the grasscutter.

Groundnut oil was extracted using solvent extraction method, the process of extraction was investigated to check the effect of moisture content, extraction temperature and extraction time on the percentage oil yield obtained from groundnut seeds. The experiment carried out was designed with the aid of central composite design of response surface methodology while maintaining a constant particle size of 0.6mm throughout the experiment. The optimum percentage oil yield of 50.85% was obtained at moisture content, extraction temperature and extraction time of 6% (wet basis), 60 0 C and extraction time of 8hr respectively. While, the least value of 32.37% was obtained at moisture content, extraction temperature and extraction time of 18% (wet basis), 40 0 C and 4hr respectively. The data obtained were used to investigate the effect of moisture content, extraction temperature and extraction time on percentage oil yield. A quadratic model was developed to predict the percentage oil yield at a given combination of the process factors. All the factors under investigated has a significant effect on the percentage oil yield obtained from groundnut seeds. The validation results of the developed model showed that there is good agreement between the experiment and predicted values.