This study was conducted to investigate the effect of heat stress (i.e., elevated ambient temperature -Ta; 36 °C ± 3 °C) on growth performance, mortality rate, and on some haematological and biochemical parameters in different categories of gender and age of New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits. Animals were divided into two main groups (control and treatment), in each group there were 56 rabbits: adult females (n = 20), adult males (n = 4), growing females (n = 16), and growing males (n = 16). Results revealed that total and daily feed intake, feed conversion ratio, and total and daily gain in body weight for growing NZW rabbits were affected negatively by elevated Ta. Decreases in feed intake led to less protein biosyntheses and less fat deposition, which led to lower body weight gain. These observations were made in growing and adult rabbits of both genders. Analysis showed that red blood cell (RBC) counts showed alterations. Packed cell volume (PCV) (in adult females and males), white blood cell (WBC) counts (in growing females), lymphocytes (in growing males), monocytes (in growing females and adult males), basophils (in growing females and growing and adult males) were significantly (P < 0.05) decreased, and total proteins (TP) (in adult females), glucose (Glu) (in adult females), and calcium (Ca 2+ ) (in growing males and females) were significantly (P < 0.01) lower in the experimental group. Furthermore, elevated Ta increased the mortality rate (MR) in both age groups. The mortality rate was 30.36% for growing and adult rabbits of the experimental group, compared with 7.14% for the control group, and was 25% for adult compared with 34.38% for growing experimental rabbits. Exposure of NZW rabbits of both ages and genders to elevated ambient temperature (36°C ± 3 °C), negatively affected their internal homeostasis which was reflected in their growth rate and various physiological signs.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation of seaweed on the reproductive performance of rabbits. Two trials were performed during this study. In the first trial, semen quality was evaluated in 15 buck rabbits with mean body weight of 4.8090.41 kg and six month of age. In the second trial, prolificacy was determined in 30 artificially inseminated does with a mean body weight of 4.8490.50 kg and five to six months of age. Rabbits in each trial were randomly allocated to one of three dietary seaweed levels; commercial pelleted diet (C), pelleted diet supplemented with 1% seaweed (T 1 ), and pelleted diet supplemented with 2% seaweed (T 2 ). Dietary supplementation of seaweed significantly increased plasma testosterone concentration and improved various sperm motility parameters. Analysis of acrosomal membrane integrity using electron microscopy revealed no significant influences of dietary seaweed supplementation on quality grade (IÁIV) of all tested samples. These results reflected in positive prolificacy response of does artificially inseminated with semen samples pooled from bucks fed on T 2, and offered diet supplemented with 2% seaweed one week prior to their insemination and throughout the gestation period. Feeding diets supplemented with 2% seaweed to doe rabbits improved their kindling rate, litter size, and their offspring ratio. Seaweed supplementation to the diets of rabbits raised under summer conditions had improved their reproductive performance by improving the semen fertility characteristics of bucks and the prolificacy characteristics of does. Hematological and biochemical parameters investigated in this study did not reveal any pathological signs in both rabbit's genders due to dietary seaweed supplementation.
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