Impact of Amaranthus hypochondriacus in nutrition for rabbits on meat quality

Abstract

Unique properties of Amaranthus hypochondriacus have been extensively utilized in the recent time worldwide both in food technologies and husbandry. An intensive growth of Amaranthus hypochondriacus plants has been made in Ukraine there and, respectively, production of foods based on amaranth is growing, however no research on its use for feeding rabbits is available. Therefore, the study aimed to review the impact of Amaranthus hypochondriacus on slaughter features of rabbits, meat quality including those under storage conditions. The California race rabbits of 60 days age were divided into two groups, 28 animals in each. The rabbits in the study group were fed (by adding to the basal diet) with 20% of amaranth oilcake. The rabbits were slaughtered at age of 120 days. The following key features of meat output and quality performance were determined: pH, moisture content, water-holding capacity, cooking losses, protein and cholesterol content as well as change in pH, microorganisms count, and moisture loss percentage during 9-day storage in chilled state. Amaranthus hypochondriacus effect on the rabbit live weight, hot carcass weight, dressing out percentage, percentage ratio of heart, kidney, liver, lung weight to carcass weight, рН, moisture content, water-holding capacity, and meat morphological structure was determined. Reduction in cholesterol level by 15.07% (р < 0.05) in the meat of rabbits that were fed with Amaranthus hypochondriacus was detected. pH and drip loss percentage were not significantly different among the groups in the shelf-life period. However, it was found out that growth of microorganisms in the meat of rabbits that were fed with Amaranthus hypochondriacus was slowed down: microorganisms count was 1.65 and 1.71 (р < 0.05) times lower than in the control group on the 6th and 9th days of storage, accordingly. The low-cholesterol and bacteriostatic effects of amaranth oilcake in the rabbit nutrition may significantly increase dietary properties of rabbit meat. Use of amaranth oilcake for rabbit fattening has great potential and further studies including the mechanism of antibacterial effect of A. hypochondriacus on the rabbit meat are required

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“…In rabbits older than 9 months, the invasion intensiveness of passalurosis decreased and in animals aged 1-2 years it was 479.31 ± 91.96 eggs in 1 g of faeces. The pathogenic effect of Passalurus ambiguus depends on the invasion intensiveness (Duda et al, 2019;Shevchik et al, 2021). As a result of helminthocoproovoscopic studies, it was established that rabbits suffering from passalurosis had different levels of invasion intensiveness (II): low level (II = 276.47 ± 43.33 eggs in 1 g of faeces), medium level (II = 1293.75 ± 275, 80 eggs in 1 g of faeces) and high level (II = 2446.67 ± 422.11 eggs in 1 g of faeces) (Fig.…”

Seasonal and age dynamics of passalurosis invasion of rabbits and pathological and histological changes in this nematodosis

“…According to N.M. Hussein et al (2022), infection of animals with the Passalurus ambiguus pathogen in rabbit farms in Egypt reaches 45%, and in Italy -up to 82.3% with the invasion intensiveness from a few eggs of the pathogen to about 200 specimens in 1 g of faeces (Nosal et al, 2006). According to scientists, passalurosis of rabbits in Serbia was registered in 17.09% of animals (Ilić et al, 2018), in Italy -12.9% (Sergi et al, 2018), in Poland -21.9% (Kornaś et al, 2015), in Iraq -10% (Athraa, 2014), 32.37% (Marhoon, 2018), 52.1% (Al-Moula, 2005). That is, despite a sufficient number of reports, this disease stays relevant in rabbit farms around the world today.…”