Fibre and protein requirements of early weaned rabbits and the interaction with weaning age: effects on digestive health and growth performance

Abstract

The aims of this work were first to evaluate nutritional requirements of early weaned kits (23 days of age), more especially fibre (experiment 1) and protein (experiment 2) needs. In experiment 1, 276 early weaned rabbits were offered from 23 to 50 days of age one of the three experimental diets containing increasing acid-detergent fibre level (160, 190 or 220 g/kg). Fibre was substituted by starch and fat to obtain three isoenergetic diets. In experiment 2, 306 early weaned rabbits were offered from 23 to 50 days of age one of the three experimental diets containing increasing crude protein (CP) level (150, 180 or 210 g/kg). Protein was substituted by starch and fat to obtain three isoenergetic diets. These studies revealed no effect of the dietary fibre level and the dietary CP level on health status. But from 23 to 36 days of age rabbits given diets containing a fibre level over 190 g/kg or a CP level under 180 g/kg showed the lowest growth rate as compared with other respective treatments. Secondly, this research aimed to evaluate the interaction between age at weaning (23 days or 35 days of age) and food (RD and RY diets) on digestive health and performances of young rabbits (experiment 3). RD diet was formulated to contain (per kg) 170 g starch, 160 g fibre and 180 g CP (according to the nutritional requirements of does) and RY diet was formulated to reach 110 g starch, 160 g fibre and 210 g CP (according to the results of experiments 1 and 2). 39 litters of nine pups per litter were assigned at 18 days of age to one of four experimental groups in a 2 £ 2 factorial design: RD23 (no. ¼ 84 rabbits), RY23 (no. ¼ 85 rabbits), RD35 (no. ¼ 86 rabbits) and RY35 (no. ¼ 74 rabbits). Food intake and live weight were not influenced by feeding strategy. Between 23 and 35 days of age, mortality was higher in RY than in RD group (20·4 v. 6·8% respectively; P , 0·05). During this period growth rate was proportionately 0·584 higher in conventionally weaned than in early weaned rabbits ( P , 0·001). After 35 days of age, food intake and growth rate were proportionately 0·104 and 0·097 higher respectively in conventionally than in early weaned rabbits ( P , 0·05). Consequently, live weight was higher in conventionally weaned rabbits at both 35 and 53 days of age (proportionately þ0·113 and þ0·267 respectively; P , 0·001). Mortality rate between 23 and 35 days was 21 points higher ( P , 0·001) in early weaned than in conventionally weaned pups and 43 points higher ( P , 0·001) from 35 to 53 days of age. These data suggest that the removal of milk feeding by early weaning leads to detrimental effects on health and growth of the young, which were not compensated by a diet meeting better their nutritional needs.Early weaning (, 25 days of age) is a simple and efficient method to offer to the young a specific food adapted to their

New trends in rabbit feeding: influence of nutrition on intestinal health. A review

“…These results explain the signif icant increase in viability of weanling rabbits observed in several studies when weaning age was delayed (Feugier et al, 2006;Sánchez, 2006;Romero et al, 2007). The effect was higher and more significant when the comparison was made with weaning at very early age (as 23-d) or when sanitary conditions of the farm were poor.…”

Effect of decreasing dietary protein level and replacing starch with soluble fibre on digestive physiology and performance of growing rabbits

“…In fact, reducing protein level and increasing ileal protein digestibility significantly decreased mortality caused by epizootic rabbit enteropathy (Xiccato et al, 2006;Chamorro et al, 2007) and reduced the presence of Clostridium perfringens and total anaerobic bacteria at ileum in growing rabbits (García-Palomares et al, 2006). Feugier et al (2006), however, did not find differences in the health status of rabbits when reducing dietary CP from 210 to 150 g/kg.…”

“…Only with CP below 138 g/kg diet as-fed, daily weight gain is impaired (29%) in the entire fattening period (Maertens et al, 1997). In the post-weaning period, however, growth rate of rabbits weaned both at 25 days (Feugier et al, 2006) or at 35 days (Trocino et al, 2000) was reduced with LP diets (150 and 144 g/kg, respectively).…”

Nutritional impact on health and performance in intensively reared rabbits

“…Early weaning (at 25 days of age) allows increasing reproductive efficiency in intensively reared rabbits (Mé ndez et al, 1986;Nicodemus et al, 2002). However, several works suggest a positive influence of a delay of weaning age (up to 35 days of age) to prevent fattening mortality (Lebas, 1993;Feugier et al, 2006;Romero et al, 2009a). This effect might be explained by an insufficient development at early ages of the digestive enzymatic capability (Corring et al, 1972;Dojana et al, 1998;Scapinello et al, 1999;Gutié rrez et al, 2002a), which would lead to an increasing flow of nutrients towards the hindgut and to an alteration in the equilibrium of the gut flora.…”