Abstract
An experiment is described in which palm-oil, groundnut oil, cottonseed oil and soybean oil were each fed as a 5% dietary supplement to the African giant rat (AGR). 4 AGR were fed each diet from 6-12 weeks of age. The groundnut oil-based diet supported the best liveweight gain of 4·23 g/day, while AGR fed the cottonseed oil diet lost an average weight of 1·42 g/day during the 6-week study. The efficiency of feed utilization was similar for AGR fed on palm-oil and soybean oil diets, but this was significantly (P < 0·05) better than the 3·24 g feed/g gain obtained for AGR fed on groundnut oil diet. There was an abnormally low feed intake by AGR fed the cottonseed oil diet, and this probably resulted in their poorest performance. In terms of feed conversion efficiency, the results suggest that either palm-oil or soybean oil can be used in the diet of AGR. This observation is not in line with the practice whereby groundnut oil was used in the diet of albino rat.