Contemporary administration of high and low concentrated diets in lactating rabbit does

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this work was to study the effect of the contemporary administration, in separate troughs, of two diets differing in digestible energy (DE) and crude fibre (CF) content, on the performance of lactating rabbit does. At the first mating (130 days of age and 3·8 kg), 54 nulliparous rabbit does (New Zealand) were assigned to the control group offered a conventional lactation diet (diet C: 188 g crude protein (CP) per kg dry matter (DM) and 11·43 MJ DE per kg DM); whilst another 54 rabbit does were offered at the same time, in separate troughs, diet E (203 g CP per kg DM and 12·66 MJ DE per kg DM) and diet F (178 g CP per kg DM and 10·73 MJ DE per kg DM). The contemporary administration of two diets did not significantly affect food intake. However, the rabbit does in group F + E, due to the greater consumption of diet E (approx. 0·76 of the total), consumed more digestible protein (DP) both during the first (14·40 v. 13·44 g/day per kg M0·75 and 80·1 v. 73·5 g/day per kg M0·75, respectively for days 1 to 21 and days 22 to 35) and subsequent lactations (15·37 v. 14·35 g/day per kg M0·75 and 82·6 v. 76·5 g/day per kg M0·75 respectively for days 1 to 21 and days 22 to 35). Also the DE intake was higher for the rabbit does of group F + E during the 22- to 35-day period (6708 v. 6361 kJ/day and 6918 v. 6620 kJ/day respectively for primiparous and multiparous). The improved performance of rabbit does given two different diets does not justify the extra time involved in such a technique, as the intake of diet E was constant during the experimental period and was not influenced by the different energy requirements during lactation.