Abstract
Abstract The purpose of this article is to overview the history of feeding rabbits with different types of animal fats, and to discuss their effects on rabbit performance and quality of their products. Other aspects of the inclusion of various animal fats in rabbit diets are also described. This article is based on the analysis of relevant scientific literature and presents animal fats fed to rabbits, such as beef tallow, butter, pork lard, poultry fat, fish oil, krill oil, oil extracted from insect larvae, mixtures of various animal fats, and mixtures of animal and vegetable fats. The reported papers describe the effect of fats on growth performance, lactation, rearing performance, meat quality, and health status of rabbits. It is notable that in many cases, various animal fats were often an integral part of numerous diets or were included in control diets. The presented information demonstrates that animal fat can be fed to rabbits at 2–4% of the diet without negative effects on reproductive performance, growth performance and quality of meat obtained. Rabbits were used as model animals in many studies in which fat was added to balance the diets and to increase their energy value, especially when investigating various cardiovascular and obesity-related diseases.
Highlights
Fats are very energy dense raw materials
The scientific literature has described feeding of rabbits with beef tallow, butter, pork lard, poultry fat, fish oil, krill oil, insect larvae oil, mixtures of various animal fats and animal fats mixed with vegetable fats
Recent studies concentrated on the effect of dietary inclusion of beef tallow on rabbit meat quality, which fits in the field of studies concerned with production of functional foods
Summary
Fats are very energy dense raw materials. They are present in many feedstuffs. According to Trebušak et al (2011), dietary supplementation of vegetable oils may have a beneficial influence on the fatty acid profile of rabbit meat. Andrade et al (2018), who analysed the efficacy of different vegetable and animal fats in rabbits, found that neither animal performance nor meat composition were affected by dietary lipid sources. Kowalska and Bielański (2009) reported that dietary supplementation with fish oil led to a highly significant increase in the levels of n-3 PUFAs, especially eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), in the lipid fraction of rabbit leg muscles. Information about the use of animal fats in publications concerning rabbit nutrition is presented thematically and chronologically with data for the amounts of dietary fats as well as the principal aims and results of the reported studies
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