ALMA LLAMBIRI, LUMTURI PAPA
Department of Animal Produvtion, Fculty of Agriculture and Environment; Agricultural University of tirana, Albania
e-mails: daijaalma@yahoo.it; lumturipapa@yahoo.com
Abstract
The aim of research was to study the effect of rearing season and feeding on the performance evaluation of a local rabbit population. Five small scale family farms with rabbits of local breed were included in the study. Two groups of rabbits per farm were fattened during summer and winter seasons. One group was fed in usual way with feeds produced in farm consisted mainly of alfalfa dry or fresh depending on season and family residues. The feeding of the other group was daily supplemented with 25 g concentrate feedstuffs (17% protein) bought in the market. Supplementation with concentrate feedstuffs showed to improve meat production from rabbits in both seasons. Live weight at the end of fattening was increased with 216.9 g and 371.6 g respectively during winter and summer season. The factors that affect the differences in live weight realized were feeding regime, sex of rabbit (P<0.001) and season of fattening (P<0.01).
The effect of these factors depended on their interaction effect like as “feed ration x season” (P<0.01), and “feed ration x sex” (P<0.05). Approaching growth curves with theoretical one of Gompers showed that concentrate adding in feed ration improved daily weight gain. It did not affect the dynamics of body weight change. It affects the gradient of quantity of daily gains of rabbits. Concentrate supplementation of daily feeding during fattening period increased up to 15.5 % the meat production as well as net income of the farm.
The rabbits feeding with daily supplementation, showed better slaughtering results than the another group; carcass percentage respectively 55.3% vs. 49.8 %; 61.2% vs. 51.8%) (P <0.01); good performance of the region’s most puncture respectively (20.4 %vs. vs. 18.4 %; 22.6% vs. 19.1 %) (P <0.01); and had also the highest bone ratio of hind leg; 3.6 vs. 3.2 and 4 vs. 3.39 (P <0.01) respectively during winter and summer seasons
Key words: rabbit, local breed, fattening, feed supplementation, carcass,
