THE RESPONSE OF GROWING NEW ZEALAND WHITE RABBITS TO DIFFERENT DIETARY PROTEIN LEVEL AND SUPPLEMENTATION WITH COPPER AND VITAMIN C. | ||
| Journal of Animal and Poultry Production | ||
| Article 1, Volume 26, Issue 11, November 2001, Pages 6669-6682 PDF (713.47 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jappmu.2001.258139 | ||
| Authors | ||
| Nadia I. El-Awady,1; S. I. Hafez1; A. A. Ghazalah2 | ||
| 1Animal production research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Dokki -Giza. | ||
| 2Animal production Department, Faculty of Agriculture , Cairo University . | ||
| Abstract | ||
| One hundred eight New Zealand White rabbits of 35 day-old with an average weight of 872 to 882 g were divided into 18 treatment groups of 6 rabbits each. All rabbits were kept into an individual cage and reared under the same managerial and hygienic conditions. A 2 X 3 X 3 factorial arrangement of treatments were used involving two protein levels (14 and 16 %) with three levels of copper sulfate (CuSO4.5H2O) to provide either zero, 250 or 750 mg/kg diet and graded levels of zero, 300 or 600 ppm coated ascorbic acid. Diets and water were offered to the rabbit ad-libitum allover the experimental period, which lasted for 15 weeks. Eighteen digestion trials (3 rabbits each) were conducted for 5 days prelminary period followed by 4 days collection period using metabolism stainless steel cages, which allowed a quantitative collection of feces and urine. Data showed that increasing either protein or vitamin C levels in diets increased CP, CF and EE digestibility, while supplementation of copper sulfate had no significant (P<0.05) effect on all nutrients digestibility except for CF. The interaction effect among protein, copper sulfate and vitamin C were similar to supplementation of copper sulfate and vitamin C each alone. The TDN values were not affected (P<0.05) due to protein level, copper sulfate and vitamin C, without interaction, also highly significant effect (P<0.05) was observed with DCP. Balance of major and trace elements was influenced by protein level and supplementation of copper sulfate and vitamin C. Cobalt balances in all treatments were negative. While, all rabbits were in positive N-balances, which were not affected by protein levels but affected by copper sulfate and vitamin C supplementation. Feeding trials showed that final body weight and weight gain were affected (P<0.05) by protein and vitamin C levels with increasing rate 11.83 - 13.45% and 28.88 - 22.52% for diets containing either 14 or 16 % CP, respectively. While feed consumption and feed efficiency were affected (P<0.05) by protein level, copper sulfate and vitamin C. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Rabbits; protein level; copper; vitamin c | ||
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