Replacement Of Clover Hay By Peanut Hay In Growing Rabbit Diets

Abstract

A total of Forty-eight unsexed weanling New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits were aged, five weeks with an average initial body weight of 685g were used to study the effects of using different levels of peanut hay (PNH) on growth performance, digestibility of nutrients, blood parameters, carcass traits and economic traits when replace to clover hay. Rabbits were randomly assigned to four experimental groups of twelve rabbits with three replicates of four animals each. The first group was fed the control diet without PNH, while the second, third and fourth groups were fed diets containing 11.2, 22.3 and 33.5% PNH, respectively. The results showed that, rabbits fed 33.5% PNH exhibited higher live body weight and body weight gain followed by those fed 11.2% PNH compared with the control group. Using PNH had no significant effect on daily feed consumption and feed conversion ratio among all tested groups. Concerning nutrients digestibility, generally rabbits fed different levels of PNH did not proved significant differences compared with the control group. Except, rabbits fed 33.5% PNH having the highest (P≤0.05) value of ether extract (EE) as well those fed 22.3% PNH had the highest value of digestible crude protein (DCP) while, control group was the best (P≤0.05) in crude fiber (CF) digestibility compared to PNH treatments. Rabbits fed diet containing 22.3% PNH recorded the highest (P≤0.05) dressing and hot carcass weight percentages compared to those of control group. Replacement of clover hay by PNH reduced insignificantly plasma albumin, total lipids and cholesterol while plasma Aspartate aminotransferase (AST) was significantly decreased in PNH rabbit group compared to control diet. Economic efficiency%, performance index and production efficiency factor (PEF) values were also improved by replacement of clover hay with PNH in growing rabbit diets. In conclusion, the results revealed that using PNH up to 33.5% in growing NZW rabbit diets had no detrimental effects on productive performance, the physiological and biochemical status and it could be used economically instead of the clover hay in growing rabbit diets.