Effect of diets on growth, digestibility, carcass and meat quality characteristics of four rabbit breeds

Abstract EN

-The current study was conducted to evaluate three diets using four rabbit breeds.

A total of 320 male weaned rabbits representing four breeds named V-line, Saudi-1, Saudi-2 and Saudi-3 were randomly distributed into three comparable dietary treatments.

Three levels of indigenous feedstuffs (IFS) of 42.5%, 65% or 87.5% (alfalfa hay, barley and wheat bran) were substituted for the same levels of non-indigenous feedstuffs in the diet (corn grain, soybean, molasses, and limestone) to form three diets named D1, D2 and D3, respectively.

These dietary treatments were used to evaluate post-weaning growth performance, feed intake, feed conversion, carcass and lean composition, and nutrients digestibility in four rabbit breeds.

Partial replacement of IFS with non-indigenous feedstuffs attained significant increase in growth performance.

The diet containing 87.5% IFS led to significant increase in daily weight gains by 8.4, 4.0, 8.1, 6.2 and 6.7 g at age intervals of 5–6, 7–8, 9–10, 10–11 and 11–12 weeks compared to the control diet, respectively.

The diet containing 87.5% IFS showed a significant reduction in feed conversion ratio compared to control diet during the experimental periods.

The diet containing 65% IFS showed significant increases in pre-slaughter weight (112 g) and hot carcass weight (89 g), while dressing percent, offal weight and percent, and non-carcass weights and percentages (head, fur, legs+ tail, viscera) were not significantly different.

The diet containing 87.5% IFS gave an increase of 1.1%, 6.4%, 8.8%, 17.9%, 7.4%, and 19.6% in digestibility coefficients of organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fibre (NFD), acid detergent fiber (ADF), hemi-cellulose (HC) and cellulose (C) compared to control diet, respectively.

Feed intakes were moderate and ranged from 69 to 124 g for V-line, 77 to 128 g for Saudi-1, 79 to 130 g for Saudi-2, and 76 to 119 g for Saudi-3 along with moderate ratios of feed conversion ranging from 2.65 to 3.80, 2.45 to 3.90, 2.46 to 3.79 and 2.63 to 3.65, respectively.

Pre-slaughter weight, hot carcass weight, and offal weight were in favour of Saudi-2 rabbits compared to the other E-mail address: saldabeeb@yahoo.com 1319-562X ª 2009 King Saud University.

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Peerreview under responsibility of King Saud University.