Haematology, Carcass and Relative Organ Weights of Growing Rabbits on Skip-A-Day Concentrate Feeding Regime

Abstract

The potentials of two common weeds, Aspilia africana (Aa) and Tridax procumbens (Tp), as forages for rabbits were investigated in a study that lasted for 70 days. Thirty five (35) rabbit bucks of mixed breed of between 5 to 7 weeks of age, weighing 519 ±5g, were used for the study. The haematological, carcass and organ characteristics were examined. The rabbits were divided into 5 treatment groups of seven (7) rabbits each, with each rabbit serving as a replicate in a complete randomized design. Group 1 was placed on sole concentrate feeding while concentrate was skipped for 1, 2 and 3 days in groups 2, 3, and 4 respectively with ad-libitum forage (Aspilia africana {Aa} and Tridax procumbens {Tp}) feeding. Group 5 was fed on a sole forage diet of 250 g Aa: 250 g Tp for 56days, after which they were fed concentrate in addition to the forage for two weeks. The red blood cell count values for rabbits on sole concentrate feeding was significantly (P<0.05) higher than the values observed in rabbits on treatments 2, 3 4 and 5, that were similar (P>0.05). The final weights of the rabbits decreased linearly (P<0.05) as the number of days of concentrate feeding decreased. The dressing percentages in treatments 1, 2, 3 and 4 (64.21, 62.97, 64.73 and 62.51 % respectively) were similar (P>0.05) but significantly higher (P<0.05) than the value for rabbits in treatment 5 (56.88 %). Organ characteristics of the rabbits showed that, apart from the relative kidney weights, other organ weights were not significantly (P>0.05) affected by the dietary treatments. It can be concluded that although feeding rabbit with sole concentrate gave the highest weight gain, the use of these forages could reduce cost of production, especially feed cost, drastically, and where it is difficult to get concentrates, these forages can be fed to rabbits for maintenance. Their use would be expected to minimize cost of maintaining a clean environment and the use of non-competitive forages as rabbit feeds could encourage rural rabbit production.

Keywords: Carcass, growing rabbit, forages, relative organs weights, skip-a day,