The Nutritional Value of Cowpeas and Cowpeas-Based Rabbit Weaner Diets

The study sought to determine the nutritional composition of cowpeas and the subsequent formulated Chinchilla giganta rabbit weaner cowpeas-based diets. Three samples of CBC3 variety of cowpea and twelve sub-samples of formulated diets (four per diet) were subjected to a proximate analysis to determine their nutritional composition. Proximate analysis results showed that cowpeas contain 93.3% Dry matter, 21.44% crude protein, metabolizable energy of 3290.25kcal/kg, 4.24% crude fibre and 2.05% ether extracts. Three diets were then formulated comprising of 0% cowpeas (control diet), 25% cowpeas and 30% cowpeas. Statistical analysis of the nutritional levels of the sub-samples indicated that the three diets were not significant in terms of dry matter, metabolizable energy, crude protein, ether extracts, crude fibre and phosphorus (p>0.05). Diet three had lower calcium content than the other diets (P<0.05). Diet one had calcium content of 1.51%, diet two had 1.60% while diet three had 0.925%. All the diets contained the same nutritional parameters for the main nutrients with all the nutrients meeting the requirements of the rabbits.