Physiological And Haematological Responses Of Rabbits Fed Diets Supplemented With Copper Sulphate

Abstract

Thirty-two crossbred male rabbits between 5-6weeks of age, with an average weight of 836.5g, were fed supplementary copper sulphate through their feed. The objective was to study the effect of this intervention on growth rate and haematological indices. The rabbits were grouped into 4 treatments: A, B, C and D of 8 rabbits each. Treatments B, C, and D were administered with copper sulphate in their diets at the following dosage rate: 100, 200 and 300ppm respectively. Treatment A that received no copper sulphate, served as the control. All the copper sulphate groups had a positive improvement in final live weight, body weight gain and feed intake, compared to the control and were significantly (P<0.05) different across the treatments. The intervention had was no significant effect (p>0.05) on the feed conversion ratio of all the treatments and the groups also had no significant (p>0.05) effect on all the blood parameters that were evaluated like Red blood cell, haemoglobin, packed cell volume, serum  protein (total protein, albumin,
globulin).White blood cell was lower than the normal range reported in literature and was significantly different (p<0.05) among treatments. It was concluded that copper sulphate could be used as a growth promoter in rabbit feeds without any negative effects.