USING PARSLEY AND CARAWAY STRAWS AS SUBSTITUTES FOR ALFALFA HAY IN GROWING RABBIT DIETS | ||||
| Journal of Animal and Poultry Production | ||||
| Article 5, Volume 1, Issue 6, June 2010, Page 265-274 PDF (477.86 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jappmu.2010.86223 | ||||
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| Authors | ||||
| Kh. El. Sherif; El-Samara H. Abo-Egla; Amal I. Ramadan | ||||
| Poultry Prod. Dept., Fac. Agric., Mansoura Univ. | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| The present study was carried out to investigate the effect of inclusion of different levels of parsley and caraway straws in place of alfalfa hay on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, carcass traits, and certain blood parameters. Five pelleted experimental diets were formulated to contain five levels of parsley and caraway straws mixtures to replace 0 (control), 25, 50, 75 or 100% of alfalfa hay in the basal diet. Eighty growing (New Zealand White × Californian) 6-week-old rabbits divided into five equal experimental groups and fed the experimental diet from 6 to 13 weeks of age. The obtained results during the whole experimental period indicated that neither growth performance(body weight, weight gain, fee intake, feed conversion or economic efficiency of growth), nutrient digestibility [dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE) and crude fiber (CF) and nitrogen free extract (NFE)], carcass traits nor blood plasma constituents (glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, and activity of AST and ALT) were adversely affected by the experimental treatments. Based on the results of the present study, it can be concluded that parsley and caraway straw can completely replace alfalfa meal in growing rabbit diets without compromising growth performance, nutrient digestibility or carcass traits. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Rabbits; parsley; caraway; performance; nutrient digestibility; carcass traits | ||||
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