Effect of Broussonetia papyrifera leaf meal on growth performance, antioxidant capacity, and gut health status of growing rabbits

Abstract

This experiment aimed to study the effect of Broussonetia papyrifera leaf meal (BP) on the growth performance, antioxidant capacity, intestinal permeability, and caecal microbiota of growing rabbits. A total of 240 weaned Ira male rabbits were randomly divided into four groups with six replicates of 10 rabbits each. The BP was added at 0% (CON), 3.0% (BP3), 6.0% (BP6), and 9.0% (BP9). All diets were isoenergetic, isonitrogenous, and isofibrous. The feeding trial lasted for 28 days. The results showed that adding BP had no significant effect on the growth performance of rabbits. Compared with the CON group, groups BP6 and BP9 showed the reduced serum diamine oxidase content (P < 0.01). The jejunal secretory immunoglobulin A content in BP6 was higher than in the CON group (P < 0.01). The addition of BP had no significant effect on the jejunal antioxidant capacity. The BP9 increased the abundance of the caecal Firmicutes; BP3 and BP6 increased Bacteroidota; BP6 and BP9 increased Proteobacteria (P < 0.05). It is concluded that the BP can be used as a roughage source to reduce intestinal toxic markers, improve the intestinal immune function and the abundance of caecal microflora in growing rabbits.

Evaluating the effects of tannic acid on rabbit growth performance, digestibility, antioxidant status, intestinal morphology and caecal fermentation and microbiota

“…Our results are also in good agreement with those reported by Krajka‐Kuźniak (2003), who observed that TA can modulate the antioxidant enzyme activities in the liver and kidney of rats. However, no significant difference was found in antioxidation of growing rabbits with Broussonetia papyrifera (contains tannins), which was not in agreement with the previous studies (Han et al, 2023). Thus, A wide range of tannins has been extensively tested in animal diets as modulators in order to improve animals' antioxidant status and oxidative stability of their products (Besharati et al, 2022; Koleckar et al, 2008).…”