Olive cake meal as partial or complete substitute for clover hay in growing rabbit diets [electronic resource].

Includes references.

Sixty weaned male New Zealand white rabbits of four weeks age were divided to 5 similar groups of(l2) rabbits. Each group was divided to 3 replicates of 4 rabbits each. Rabbits of each replicate were placed in wire single floor cage. In this study Olive cake meal (OKM) was incorporated into the basal diet to replace clover hay (CH) at 0,25,50.75 and 100% of the diet. All the tested diets were iso caloric-iso nitrogenous and in pelleted form. The criteria studied were live weight (LW), weight gain (WG), growth rate (GR), feed consumption (FC), feed efficiency (FE), digestibility coefficients (DC) and the nutritive values of the tested diets. The slaughter test was carried out at the end of the experiment on three representative rabbits from each treatment. The economic efficiency (EE) of the product was also calculated. The blood metabolites (glucose, creatinine, total protein, glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), glutamic pyruvic transaminase (GPT), alkaline phosphatase and blood urea nitrogen) were determined. The results obtained seemed to justify the following conclusion: Body weight with 75 % (OKM) incorporation recorded 2.14% higher than that of the control group. Average daily weight gain (DWG) during the whole experiment period (5-13 weeks) amounted 25.64, 25.21. 22.08, 26.82 and 24.74g on diet with 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% (OKM) incorporation, respectively, showing that diet composition had no significant effect on (DWG).

Summary in Arabic.

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