STUDY OF THE METABOLIC PROFILE OF RABBITS IN RELATION TO TWO DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTAL TEMPERATURES

Abstract

The trial was conducted on 75 male rabbits (50 days old) of a commercial cross bred type in order to study the effects of temperature on the metabolic profile of rabbits. The animals were housed in two different rooms at 12 C (LT) and 30 C (HT). Relative humidity was about 65% and the natural photoperiod was characterized by 16L:8D. At the end of the experiment (106 days of age) a blood simple was taken from each rabbit after 2 hours’ fasting. The LT animals showed higher (P< 0.01) daily weight gain (36.7 vs 25.7g), feed intake (173 vs 110g) and feed conversion ratio (4.73 vs 4.37 g/g). LT rabbits had higher plasma levels of haematocrit (0.40 vs 0.38 l/l, P< 0.05), glucose (7.7 vs 6.8 mmol/l, P< 0.01), total proteins (65.1 vs 58.6g/l, P< 0.01), albumin (48.2 vs 42.9g/l, P< 0.01), urea nitrogen (6.71 vs 5.44 mmol/l, P< 0.01) Ca (3.69 vs 3.51 mmol/l, P< 0.01), inorganic P (2.21 vs 1.90 mmol/l, P< 0.01) and Mg Mg (1.00 vs 0.90 mmol/I, P<0.01). HT animals had higher plasma concentrations of colesterol (2.56 vs 1.53 mmol/l, P<0.01), creatinine (143 vs 106mmol/l, P<0.01) AST (26 vs 18 U/l, P<0.05), P<0.05). ALT (36 vs 29 a U/l, P<0.05) and CI (108 vs 106 mmol/l, P<0.05). In conclusion, our results indicate that environmental temperatura has a significant effect on the biochemical profile of rabbits.