The Effect of Diseases on Food Consumpution and Weight Gain in Captive Common Buzzards (Buteo buteo)
Okoli C. P1, Aiyedun J. O2
1Okoli C. P, Department of Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Abuja, Nigeria.
2Aiyedun J. O, Department of Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Abuja, Nigeria.
Manuscript received on November 20, 2014. | Revised Manuscript received on December 04, 2014. | Manuscript published on December 30, 2014. | PP: 162-167 | Volume-4 Issue-2, December 2014. | Retrieval Number: B3640124214/2013©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Disease conditions invariably affect the activities and physiology of common buzzards irrespective of whether they are non-infectious or infectious. The impact of these diseases is further compounded by the stress of captivity in rehab facilities. Fifty common buzzards were studied in five batches of 10 birds at a time. The conditions the buzzards were diagnosed of at entry were divided into infectious and non-infectious diseases. The main trust of this investigation was to arithmetically compute the average daily food consumption and weight gain by common buzzards with non-infectious ,infectious diseases and those with both non-infectious and infectious diseases over the study period, analyse and interprete the results statistically. The buzzards were kept singly in perforated paper boxes with their food weighed daily with an electronic scale. A control was set up daily in a box without any buzzard to determine and correct for weight loss through moisture by evaporation. The left-over was weighed the next day and subtracted from the quantity of meat served to get the relative quantity of meat consumed. The absolute quantity of meat was gotten after taking cognizance of moisture lost by the control. Birds with non-infectious, infectious and those with both non-infectious and infectious diseases on the average consumed 116.6g,111.9g and 110.3g of food daily respectively. In the same order their weight gain was 12.2%,18.8% and 17.6%. While there are obvious differences mathematically in the amount of food consumed and percentage weight gained by the 3 categories of birds as shown, Anova shows no significant difference in the values obtained since the P-value ( 0.38741) is greater than the level of significance of 0.05. This result could be attributed to the unbiased, equal and good care given to all the studied buzzards as the study lasted in tandem with world best standard practice and ethics. It also underscores the necessity and effectiveness of wildlife rehabilitation programmes.
Keywords: Diseases, Food Consumption, Weight Gain, Captive, Common Buzzards.