Studies on the pathology of ipomoea carnea plant toxicity in goats

Abstract

In summer and drought periods animals may be forced to eat the poisonous plants which are adopted to semi-arid conditions. Ipomoea carnea has long been incriminated as toxic to livestock particularly goats. Goats which graze on I. carnea during dry periods become prone to its toxic effects. The available information on the toxicity of I. carnea was scanty. Hence, an attempt was made to study the haematological, biochemical and pathological changes in goats on feeding I. carnea leaves. newlineEighteen goats of 4-5 months age were utilized in the present work. Goats were randomly divided into three groups of six animals each. Group I and I1 constituted the experimental groups, while group I11 constituted the control. Animals in group I and I1 were fed with fresh leaves of I. cornea at the rate of 50 g and 5 g/kg body weight, respectively. In addition to that all the animals including control were fed with green fodder and concentrates ad libitum. Experiment was continued for a period of 16 weeks. newline newline