A comparison of selected performance indicators, nutrient digestibility and nitrogen balance parameters in Californian and Flemish Giant rabbits

Abstract

Medium rabbit breeds such as Californian (CAL) are generally regarded as most suitable for meat production on commercial farms. Despite the increasing scale of production, commercial rabbit breeding has not replaced traditional and organic small-scale farming systems which use various rabbit breeds and hybrids. The Flemish Giant (FG), the largest rabbit breed in the world, is widely used in small household farms. According to researchers, the progeny of FG does have a relatively high weaning weight, and bucks are deemed good paternal components in commercial crossing. The aim of this study was to compare rearing rate, body weight, daily gains, carcass dressing percentage and the percentage of primal cuts in the carcass in CAL and FG rabbits. Nutrient digestibility, nitrogen balance and nitrogen retention parameters were also compared in the studied breeds. In our study, CAL rabbits were characterised by better reproductive performance in comparison with FG rabbits. Despite the above, the observed daily gain values, daily nitrogen balance and retention parameters and carcass dressing percentages of the compared breeds suggest that FGs may be a good alternative to medium breeds such as CAL rabbits.

Productivity, Nutrient Digestibility, Nitrogen Retention, and Meat Quality in Rabbits Fed Diets Supplemented with Sida hermaphrodita

“…The performance parameters of rabbits from all groups (Table 4) were within normal limits for growing meat-type rabbits of medium-sized breeds raised in Europe [5,27,32]. However, only a few studies have investigated the efficacy of Sida hermaphrodita in livestock nutrition, and there appears to be no published information on rabbits.…”

Usability of rapeseed cake and wheat-dried distillers’ grains with solubles in the feeding of growing Californian rabbits

“…Noteworthy is also a higher content of lysine in SBM (2.64%) than in RSC (1.95%) and wheat DDGS (barely 0.77%). Our recent research (Strychalski et al 2014) demonstrated that BWG of these rabbits were much lower compared with Flemish Giant rabbits. In finished feed mixtures (Table 2), the content of crude protein ranged from 15.6% to 16.8%, which met the protein requirement of 15.3% for growing rabbits (Carabaño et al 2009).…”

Effect of the inclusion ofAmaranthus dubiusin diets on carcass characteristics and meat quality of fattening rabbits

“…Carcass characteristics and meat quality are the fundamental aspects that guide research on the production of fattening rabbits, due to the relevance reached by this species to produce meat of good nutritional quality (Dalle Zotte 2002;Dal Bosco et al 2012;Capra et al 2013) with high reproductive and growing performance (Strychalski et al 2014). Rabbit meat has several attributes that make it superior to that of other species, mainly its higher protein and lower fat contents (Dalle Zotte 2002).…”