NUTRITIONAL AND BIOLOGICAL STUDIES ON INTERACTION BETWEEN AN ANABOLIC STEROID AND CERTAIN ANTIBIOTICS IN RABBITS

Abstract

The present study was carried out at the Animal House of the National Organization for Drug Control and Research (NODCAR), Aguoza, Cario, at the period from 3/3/1997 to 25/10/1997.

This study was planned to investigate the effect of an anabolic steroid (methyl- b. - androstenolone oenonthate) and two antibiotics (amoxicillin and danofloxacine) used either individually or to-gether on the performance, mortality, nutrients digestibility, carcass traits, and some biochemical parameters of blood serum of growing NZW rabbits during the period from 5-16 weeks of age.

A total of 96 weaned NZW rabbits aged five weeks old and about 600 g live body weigh were used in this study.

Results obtained showed that administration of MA alone or in combination with either Amox and I or Dano improved the growth performance of rabbits during the whole experimental period ( 5-16 weeks of age), whereas the use of either Amox, Dano or their combination had little effect on growth performance values. Dietary treatments slightly improved (insignificantly) the digestibility of OM. CF and NFE; whereas, it significantly improved EE digestibility. Dietary treatments. had little effect on absolute and relative (%) weight of carcass traits of growing NZW rabbits at 16 weeks of age and the differences due to these treatment effects were almost non significant. Amox + Dano and MA + A!llox + Dano treatments tended to increase the level of most blood serum constituents of growing NZW rabbits at 12 weeks of age, whereas MA treatment showed the greatest effect on blood serum constituents of growing NZW rabbits at 16 weeks of age. However, dietary treatments decreased triglycerides and total lipids in all treated rabbits as compared with those of the control group.