Effects of dietary supplemental zinc and/ or selenium enriched spirulina (Zn-Sp, Se-Sp and Zn-Se-Sp, respectively) as antioxidants on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, plasma biochemicals and antioxidant status of growing rabbits under summer conditions were evaluated. A total of 160 New Zealand White male rabbits at six-weeks-old were randomly assigned to four groups. The first group received untreated diet (control). The other groups received diet supplemented with 100 mg Zn-Sp/kg diet, 0.5 mg Se-Sp/kg diet or 100 mg Zn-Sp+ 0.5 mg Se-Sp, respectively. The findings showed that the supplemented diets enhanced growth performance of rabbits at marketing. Rabbits fed Zn-Sp exhibited high dry and organic matter digestibilities while those fed Zn-Sp and Zn-Se-Sp diet supplemented achieved high crude protein digestibility. Rabbits fed diet supplemented with Zn-Se-Sp gave the highest hot carcass weight when competed with their counterparts. Zn-Sp and Zn-Se-Sp supplemented diets tended to promote dressing percentage. Low concentrations of plasma total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and VLDL-cholesterol were recorded by Se-Sp and Zn-Se-Sp groups. Rabbits fed Se-Sp, Zn-Se-Sp had the greatest HDL, plasma TAC and catalase and the lowest TBARs. Conclusively, dietary supplementation of 100 mg Zn-Sp, 0.5 mg Se-Sp or their combination could improve growth performance, nutrients digestibility and antioxidant status of heat stressed growing rabbits.

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This study was conducted to investigate the effects of supplementing the rabbit diets with Eucalyptus globulus dried leaves (EGL) or its aqueous extract (EGE) on growth performance, nutrients digestibility and blood constituents. A total number of 225 weaned New Zealand White rabbits, six weeks old, were used in this experiment. Treatment groups were ; a control diet (C), T 1 and T 2 were the control diet + 0.25 or 0.5% dried eucalyptus leaves, respectively, T 3 and T 4 were the control diet + 0.05 or 0.1% aqueous extract of eucalyptus leaves, respectively, The growth trail lasted for 8 weeks. At the end of the trial, digestibility nutrient trails were done and nutritive values were calculated, then rabbits were slaughtered and blood samples were obtained. The obtained results could be summarized as follows: Providing rabbit diets with EGL; EGA significantly (P<0.01) increased final live weight, body weight gain and, feed conversion ratio, especially at 0.25% EGL compared to the control. The best FCR were reported to the groups contain 0.25% EGL followed by 0.05% EGE. The digestibility coefficients for OM, CP and nutritive values in terms DCP and TDN of the experimental diets significantly increased with EGL and EGE feeding. Supplemented EGL or EGE to the diets significantly increased (P<0.05) values of hemoglobin concentration, RBC's, WBC's count and percentage of lymphocytes. Both EGL and EGE significantly increased blood total protein and albumin, also decreased triglycerides and total cholesterol and has no effect on creatinine and the activity of AST and ALT. It could suggested that using eucalyptus as feed additives for growing rabbits improve growth performance and digestibility, with no adverse effects on blood constituents.

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