Performance and Oxidative Stress Biomarkers of West African Dwarf Goats Fed Diet Containing Incremental Sodium Humate

Problems relating to reduced performance owing to mineral deficiencies in grazing animals and oxidative stress occasioned by changing weather condition can be addressed through strategic mineral supplementa-tion and improving antioxidant capacity of the animals. A 97-day trial was designed to assess the perform-ance and apparent nutrient digestibility of West African Dwarf (WAD) goats fed diets with incremental levels of sodium humate. Thirty (30) WAD bucks of ages between 10-15 months were used for this study. The bucks were randomly assigned to five dietary treatments containing 0, 5, 7.5, 10 and 12.5 g/kg diet of sodium humate laid out as completely randomized design. Data on weight changes, dry matter concentrate intake, feed conversion ratio (FCR), nutrient digestibility and rate of mineral absorption were obtained and statistically analysed using the generalized linear model (GLM) of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) (version 23). Results revealed that sodium humate supplementation improved (P<0.05) weight gain, FCR, mineral (Zn, Cu, Mn and Na) absorption and nutrient (dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), crude fibre (CF), ash, ether extracts (EE), neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF)) digesti-bility. Supplementation of sodium humate decreased concentrate intake (P<0.05). After 30 days of sodium humate supplementation, malondialdehyde (MDA) increased (P<0.05) at higher levels, glutathione peroxi-dase also increased up to the level of 7.5 g/kg diet sodium humate and then decreased in subsequent levels, with superoxide dismutase (SOD) observed to decrease (P<0.05). However, at 90 days of sodium humate supplementation, MDA, nitric oxide (NO) and bilirubin decreased (P<0.05) while albumin and uric acid increased (P<0.05).Conclusively, up to 12.5 g/kg diet supplementation of sodium humate sufficiently en-hanced performance of WAD goats while also improving their antioxidant capacity.