Effects of Moringa oleifera Leaves, Bark Stem of Lannea barteri and Antibiotic (Oxytetracycline) on Haematological Parameters of Clarias gariepinus Fingerlings

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to determine the effects of Moringa oleifera leaves, Lannea barteri bark and antibiotic additives on haematological parameters of C. gariepinus fingerlings. Moringa and Lannea were subjected to three (3) treatments (whole, aqueous and ethanol). Four hundred and eighty (480) C. gariepinus fingerlings of 4.60 g ± 0.02 g mean weight were acclimated for two weeks and distributed randomly into 24 re-circulatory tanks of 50 litres volume capacity representing 8 experimental diets. The experimental diets comprised the same inclusion levels. A commercial reference diet (CRD) was used as control. Moringa whole (MWL), Moringa aqueous extract (MAE) and Moringa ethanol extract (MEE) represented diet 2, 3 and 4 respectively while Lannea whole (LWL), Lannea aqueous extract (LAE) and Lannea ethanol extract (LEE) representing diet 5, 6 and 7 while diet 8 was antibiotic (ANTB). After feeding trial, the haematological parameters revealed that, white blood cells (WBC) count was significantly higher (P<0.05) in the group of fish fed LWL (247.40 × 103 mm-3), LAE (235.50 × 103 mm-3) and LEE (234.15 × 103 mm-3) based diets and significantly lower (P<0.05) was obtained in group of Antibiotic based diet (1.65 × 103 mm-3). There significant difference (P<0.05) across the red blood cells (RBC) of the initial fishes and experimented fishes were recorded. The Packed Cell Volume (PCV) ranges between LWL (46.05%) and MWL (10.70%). Haemoglobin was significantly lower (P<0.05) in the Initial (4.87 g/dl) and CRD (5.13 g/dl) based diets. The platelets count were significantly different (P<0.05) in all the treatments. There were no significant differences (P>0.05) in all mean corpuscular haemoglobin and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration in all the treatments. The findings have positive impact on the haematological parameters of C. gariepinus fingerlings compared with antibiotic (ANTB).