Growth Performance of Male Rabbits (Lepus negricollis) Fed Different Levels of Fermented Coffee Pulp

Abstract

The traditional rabbit raising resulted in very poor growth of rabbit so a study was carried out on growth performance of male rabbit fed different levels of fermented coffee pulp. A randomized block design (RBD) with five treatments and four replicates of two rabbits in each treatment was used in this experiment. The treatments were diet without coffee pulp (R0), diet with 10% unfermented coffee pulp (R1), diet with 20% unfermented coffee pulp (R2), diet with 10% fermented coffee pulp (R3), and diet with 20% fermented coffee pulp (R4). Each treatment consisted of 8 male five week old local rabbits. Variables observed were final body weight, weight gain, feed intake, water consumption, feed efficiency, dry matter, energy and protein digestibility. The results showed that rabbits given ration with 10% fermented coffee pulp (R3) revealed higher dry matter energy and protein digestibility. Further, they had the highest final body weight, weight gain and highest feed efficiency. It was concluded that the use of 10% fermented coffee pulp in the diet produced the highest performance compared to other treatments. Fermented coffee pulp at the level of 10% could be recommended to farmers for substituting rice bran in rabbits diets.