Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
5790136 | Livestock Science | 2014 | 8 Pages |
â¢Highly-digestible fibre diets might reduce digestive disorders in young rabbits.â¢Highly-digestible fibre diets might impair growth and carcass yield of young rabbits.â¢Switching to a concentrate diet at finishing increases health risk in young rabbits.
The effect of three different dietary programmes on health, growth performance and carcass and meat quality in young rabbits weaned at 28Â d was studied using a diet (F) rich in highly-digestible fibre, from 17 to 63Â d of age (group FF); using diet F from 17 to 42Â d followed by a diet poor in highly-digestible fibre and rich in starch and fat (S) until 63Â d (group FS); and using a standard diet C with intermediate highly-digestible fibre and starch content, containing 100Â ppm of zinc-bacitracin, from 17 to 63Â d (group CC). A highly-digestible fibre diet could be useful to reduce the incidence of digestive disorders. However, it decreased slaughter weight (2294Â g in FF vs. 2406Â g in CC; P<0.05) and carcass and meat traits, e.g. dressing out percentage (55.4% in FF vs. 56.7% in CC; P<0.05), meat to bone ratio (5.73 in FF vs. 5.94 in CC; P<0.05) and hind leg fat content (3.81% in FF vs. 4.71% in CC; P<0.05) at 63Â d of age. Switching to a high starch and fat diet at late fattening improved chilled carcass weight at 63Â d of age (1339Â g in FS vs. 1263Â g in FF; P<0.05) mainly through the promotion of liver development (7.53% in group FS vs. 6.47% in group FF; P<0.05) and fat deposition (3.89% in FS vs. 2.63% in FF; P<0.05), and increased hind leg fat content (+1.2 points of fat percentage; P<0.05). However, this switch increased health risk (35.1% in FS vs. 17.6% in FF; P<0.05).