Genetic variability of the resistance for three types of enteropathy in the growing rabbit

This paper describes the genetic variability for the resistance to three digestive stresses in the growing rabbit: after inoculation of coccidia (trial “coccidia”), with a fibre deficient diet (trial “FD”), and after experimental reproduction of epizootic rabbit enteropathy (trial “ERE”). Genetic variability was analysed from a sample of 48 sires, which produced the experimental young rabbits. These animals were examined on D0, D4, D11, D18, D25 and D32 after weaning (at 30 days old). Three clinical symptoms were checked: bloated abdomen, diarrhoea and mucus. Mortality and clinical symptoms were used to assess an individual response to each digestive stress. Two binary indexes were defined to describe this rabbit individual response. The first one (“Alive”) dealt with mortality. The second (“Tolerant”) dealt with mortality and morbidity. “Alive”, and “tolerant” percentages were low for the “coccidia” trial (61% and 23% respectively), high for the “FD” trial (75% and 36% respectively) and intermediate for the “ERE” trial (66% and 37% respectively). The sire effect was significant for each index in the “coccidia” and the “FD” trials. The sire effect was significant for the “tolerant” index in the “ERE” trial. Correlations between sire rankings for the two indexes of one trial were often significant. Correlations between sire rankings for indexes of “coccidia” and “FD” trials were weakly significant. Our results demonstrate that there is a genetic variability for the resistance to three different enteropathies.