Effects of Zinc Supplement on Rabbits Performance and Growth Rate

Abstract

Improvement on the quantity and quality of non traditional animal protein sources has become necessary in order to meet the need for adequate food and nutrition action plans of government at all level to ensure consistent and continuous supply of basic health need such as protein, vitamins and energy food. Dietary supplementation of rabbits with zinc was carried out to determine its effects on reproduction performance and growth rate of rabbits. Fifteen adult does were randomly assigned to 3 groups of 5 rabbits per group: the control group and two treatments groups. The control group was not supplemented with zinc while treatment groups A and B were supplemented with zinc of 20μg and 40μg respectively for 60 days. Zinc enhanced increase in litter size of treatment groups that recorded 25 and 22 kittens for 20μg and 40μg respectively against 7 kittens for the control. The difference was statistically significant at P <0.001. Though, there was geometric increase in size and weight in all the groups following weaning but the growth rate was independent of zinc treatment. Mortality was 60% and 81.87% among kittens kindled by does supplemented with 20μg and 40μg of zinc respectively against 42.86% of the control does. It is not unlikely that adaptive immunity from mammary gland of does fortified with zinc impacted the kittens and improved their survival rate.