Digestibility and energy retention by young rabbits fed different levels of intake

Abstract

-Four groups of eight young male rabbits (775 g of initial liveweight), individually penned in digestibility cages, were fed a standard diet at four levels of intake: ad libitum (AL), 60, 40 and 10 % of the AL intake. Digestibility of dietary dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, ether extract and ash did not differ between levels of intake. Only digestibility of neutral detergent fibre (NDF) was significantly lower for the group receiving 10 % of the AL intake. Six of eight rabbits fed the 60 % of the AL intake, and all the rabbits fed 40 or 10 % of the AL intake lost body energy, although only those fed 10 % of the AL allowance lost weight. The

Effects of a short-term feed restriction on growth performance, blood metabolites and hepatic IGF-1 levels in growing rabbits

“…Compared to AL groups, reduction in weight gain in the L30, L50 and L70 groups (70%, 50%, 30% feed intake reduction) was approximately 94, 70 and 43%, respectively. In the same way, Díaz Arca et al (1999) fed rabbits with 10, 40 and 60% of feed ad libitum for 15 d, observing reduction in weight gain of 163, 89 and 63% compared to rabbits on ad libitum feeding and measuring a negative energy balance (NEB) in the 10% and 40% groups. Severe NEB in lactating dairy cows significantly changed the gene transcription of hepatic IGF-I and some IGF-related members (Fenwick et al, 2008).…”

Soya lecithin and season affect the productive performance, nutrient digestibility, and blood constituents of growing rabbits

“…In animals fed diet with 1.5% SL PUFA content was increased up to 154% in comparison to the control group, and so confirms the fact that digestibility of dietary fats is influenced by the fatty acid profile with a positive relationship between degree of unsaturation of fats and their digestibility (Maertens et al, 1986). The higher digestibility coefficients of most nutrients during the summer season resulted from the high ambient temperature that causes lower feed intake and decreased digesta passage rate (Arca et al, 1999), and so extend the time of nutrient digestion and absorption. In addition, heat stress may lead to an increase in the activity of the amylase (Routman et al, 2003) and lipase (Hao et al, 2012), which could increase NFE and EE digestibility.…”