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A comparison of beef, pork, and whale liver meals as enrichment sources in the ration of growing rats

University of British Columbia

The primary purpose of this investigation has been to attempt to assess the relative value of beef, pork, and whale liver after each has been processed into a meal by a similar method. The secondary purpose has been to establish the relative value of whale liver when processed into a meal by several different methods. All liver preparations have been found to be relatively low in thiamine when this vitamin is assessed by bioassay using the Wistar strain rat as an experimental animal. In almost all cases, further supplementation with cod liver oil has produced a beneficial effect with respect to the growth rate and feed consumption of rats. Many of the difficulties associated with bioassay have come to light in the course of this investigation. These difficulties have been examined in detail and some suggestions have been made as to how the detrimental effect of these difficulties may be minimized. An attempt has been made in this thesis to analyze all the pertinant data statistically. It was pointed out that when group differences in feed consumption and weight gain are large there is not too much difficulty in the interpretation of the experiment. However, when group differences are small and the group consuming the most feed makes the largest weight gain, caoution must be used if one states the differences between groups are due to the ration only. Under this set of circumstances, if the data are subjected to an analysis of covariance no difference may be noted between groups even though when either feed consumption or weight gain are analyzed separately the difference between groups are significant. In this case one must rely heavily on common sense before asserting any conclusions.

Text

2012-02-09

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/40601

Animal Science

University of British Columbia

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