Rabbits Reproductive And Physiological Performance Traits As Affected By Feeding Refined Plant Oil

Abstract

Twenty adult male rabbits were used to study of the possible effects of refined soybean, sunflower oils and their mixture on some physiological and biochemical parameters and alternation of reproductive performance in adult male rabbits. Rabbits randomly divided into four groups, five bucks for each. Examined plant oils tended to decreased feed intake, except in mixed group (soybean plus sunflower oils) in comparison to other groups during treatment and recovery periods. Positive effects of oils on hematological parameters were found only in RBCs, PCV and MCH. Plant oils had insignificant effect on plasma total protein, albumin and globulin concentrations. Insignificant effect on plasma glucose during treatment period. However, soybean oil showed a significant increase in glucose level, as compared with the control group. Plant oils showed significant increases on serum urea, aspartate amino transferase (AST), alanine amino transferase (ALT), acid phosphatase (ACP) and total bilirubin. Varying effects were also observed in lipid profile except high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), insignificant differences and triglycerides (TG), negative effect only in mixed group. Dietary supplementation with examined plant oils increased the reproductive performance of adult male rabbits. There is great evidence that inclusion of sunflower oil at 3% of the diet is an acceptable supplementation for improving physiological and reproductive performance in adult male rabbits. This project was supported by NSTIP strategic technologies program number (12-AGR 2540-02) Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.