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Abstract
An experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the effects of gestational undernutrition of rabbit does on growth, carcass composition and meat quality of the offsprings. Thirty primiparous non lactating rabbit does were artificially inseminated and randomly divided in three treatment groups: Control (C; fed to 100% of maintenance requirements throughout gestation, n = 10), early undernourished (EU; fed to 50% of maintenance requirements during days 7–19 of gestation, n = 10) and late undernourished (LU; fed to 50% of maintenance requirements during days 20-27 of gestation, n = 10). During the 4th week of the gestation period, LU does significantly lost weight compared to C and EU groups (P<0.05). At kindling, C does produced litters with higher proportions of stillborn kits (P<0.05) while the total litter size (alive and stillborn kits) was not different among groups (10.7, 12.8 and 12.7 kits in C, EU and LU groups, respectively). Kit birth weight tended to be lower in the LU group. During fattening, body weight and feed intake were not different among offsprings of the three experimental groups. Moreover, the maternal undernutrition did not have any impact on carcass composition of the offsprings in terms of carcass parts and internal organs weights as well as meat quality of L. lumborum muscle (pH24, colour, water holding capacity and shear values) at slaughter (70 days of age). Therefore, it can be concluded that the gestational undernutrition of the mother does not have detrimental effects on the productive and quality traits of the offsprings.
Highlights
There has been much research lately on the topic of developmental programming. This concept implies that a stimulus or insult acting during critical periods of fetus growth and development may result in developmental adaptations that permanently change the structure, physiology and metabolism of the offspring [1]
A significant loss of body weight was recorded for all the groups during the first week of gestation while in the second week, the early undernourished (EU) group gained significantly less weight than both C and late undernourished (LU) groups (P
During the last week of gestation, the LU group lost around 115 g of body weight while C and EU groups gained weight (P
Summary
There has been much research lately on the topic of developmental programming. This concept implies that a stimulus or insult acting during critical periods of fetus growth and development may result in developmental adaptations that permanently change the structure, physiology and metabolism of the offspring [1]. Modern rabbit breeding is based on a circular production system and the does are being inseminated every 35 or 42 days In such a system, the females are always gestating, suckling or both gestating and suckling at the same time. A lactating doe suffers from a negative energy balance and considerable mobilization of body fat, because it’s feed intake cannot cover the requirements for both maintenance and milk production, even though it increases rapidly after kindling [9]. This energy deficit increases when females are concurrently pregnant and lactating [10]. These adverse effects of lactation on fetal growth can be partially simulated by the restricted feeding of the does during gestation [12]
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