Reproductive Performance and Milk Yield of New Zealand White Rabbits as Affected by Feeding Olive Cake or Date Stone Containing Diets

Abstract

The present work was designed to study the effect of feeding crushed date stone (DS) or olive cake (OC) as partial replacement of yellow corn on reproductive performance and milk yield of New Zealand White (NZW) does and bucks. Three experiments were conducted. The first experiment was conducted to determine the suitable amount of OC or DS in rabbit diet by digestibility trial. The digestibility trial indicated that substitution of 6.25 % of OC or DS by the same ratio of yellow corn in the commercial diets gave better digestion coefficients than 12.5%. In the second experiment, 21 NZW doe rabbits aged 4-5 months and weighed about 3.1 kg were divided to three equal groups. The first group was considered as control group and fed commercial diet, the second and third groups were fed diets containing 6.25% OC and 6.25% DS, respectively. This experiment continued for two consecutive parities. The obtained results revealed that, conception rate, number of services per pregnancy and litter size at birth and at weaning were improved insignificantly in DS and OC fed groups compared to control. However, litter weight at birth and weaning and average bunny weight at birth increased (P<0.05) in OC group. While, feeding DS did not affect litter weight and bunny weight appreciably. Bunny weight at weaning, bunny daily gain and viability rates did not differ due to different diets. Total milk yield (4 weeks) was better (P<0.05) in OC and DS groups than control. The total milk yield averaged 109.55, 133.93 and 129.64 g/day/doe in control, DS and OC fed groups respectively. In the third experiment, three males produced from litters of each group of the second experiment were randomly chosen after 2 months of semen was collected twice-weekly for 6 weeks. The results revealed that, bucks fed OC or DS showed quiet improvement (P<0.05) in sexual desire, sperm motility, sperm cell concentration and semen ejaculate volume compared to control. Total motile sperm output averaged 329.21, 295.63 and 243.65 X10 6 /ml in OC, DS and control groups, respectively. Conclusively, it could be concluded that feeding 6.25% crushed date stone or olive cake as partial replacement of yellow corn in commercial diets of New Zealand White rabbits gave better reproductive performance of does and bucks and milk yield of does.

Economic, Productive, and Behavioral Evaluation of Using Dried Olive Cake and Ground Date Palm in Growing Rabbit’s Diet: Histological and Gene Expression Impact

“…In relation to the impact of incorporating DOC and GDP, with or without bentonite, on the growth performance of rabbits, our study revealed that both breeds showed significantly better results compared to the control group. These findings align with previous studies by [58,59], which reported enhanced productive performance (such as final body weight, BWG, and RGR) in NZB rabbits when fed a diet containing 6.25% olive cake or date stone. Similarly, [60] reported similar results when rabbits were fed diets containing 30% olive cake meal along with a 1% bentonite addition.…”

Climate Changes Effects on Rabbit Production

“…During the post-weaning phase, the mortality rate was 18% in summer while no mortality was recorded during winter (Habeeb et al, 1999). During 5-9, 9-13 and 5-13 weeks of age intervals, mortality rate values were higher in summer and lowered in spring than in autumn and winter (Shehata et al, 1998). The recorded high values for mortality rate in summer may be attributed to the high ambient temperature and direct effect of heat stress on the sensitive offspring (Habeeb et al, 1999).…”