Reaction time, semen and biological traits of rabbit young bucks as affected by lighting regime under the sub-tropical conditions of Egypt [electronic resource].

Includes references.

The present study aimed to investigate the biological traits of New Zealand White (NZW) young buck rabbits as affected by lighting regime, under the subtropical conditions of Egypt. The number of 32 NZW male rabbits aged 15 weeks with 1979.4±37.0 g average body weight was divided into 4 groups equal in number with nearly equal average weights. The first group was exposed to natural daylight and was considered as control. Duration of natural daylight ranged between 10:59 and 13:50 h with an average of 12.25 h during the period of the study. The second group was exposed to 16h light and 8h darkness (long lightness 16L:8D), the third was exposed to 12h light and 12h darkness and the fourth was exposed to 8h light and 16h darkness (short lightness 8L:16D).The results showed that exposure of male rabbits to different light regimes affected significantly (P<0.001, 0.01 or 0.05) most semen quality characteristics and albumin and acid phosphatase as seminal plasma biochemical traits. Skin temperature and feed consumption, blood plasma alkaline phosphatase, and T3 and cortisol hormones were also affected significantly (P<.0.01 or 0.05) by exposure to light regimes. The effects were favourable in the natural daylight than in the other light regimes. It was concluded that exposure of young male rabbits to natural day light seems to be more suitable for production of semen with better semen quality traits, under the sub-tropical environment of Egypt. The adverse effects of the use of the other light regimes may be due to that, under the sunny, warm and bright sub-tropical conditions of Egypt, exposure to lamps radiation during application of the light regime techniques may increase perception of warmth. However, further studies on the use of different light regimes with more numbers of animals in the different locations in the country, are needed.

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