Diets differed significantly in terms of their water stabilities and dry matter retention (Fig. 4). Dry matter loss occurred in a linear fashion over time for all the diets. The soy diet exhibited the best maintenance of pellet structural integrity with dry matter retention of 93.96 ± 0.45% compared to 91.86 ± 0.75% for the control diet after 5 min. The copra and palm kernel meal diets recorded dry matter retentions of 90.22 ± 0.85 and 90.39 ± 0.47% respectively
after 5 min (Fig. 4). After the 30th minute, 89.60 ± 0.48% of dry matter was recovered for the soybean meal diet which was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than the dry matter retained for the
control (85.61 ± 0.63%) after the same period. The copra and palm kernel meal diets recorded dry matter retentions of 84.50 ± 0.19 and 85.78 ± 0.81% respectively after 30 min.