Digestibility and energy retention by young rabbits fed different levels of intake

Abstract

Four groups of eight young male rabbits (775 g of initial liveweight), individually penned in digestibility cages, were fed a standard diet at four levels of intake: ad libitum (AL), 60, 40 and 10 % of the AL intake. Digestibility of dietary dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, ether extract and ash did not differ between levels of intake. Only digestibility of neutral detergent fibre (NDF) was significantly lower for the group receiving 10 % of the AL intake. Six of eight rabbits fed the 60 % of the AL intake, and all the rabbits fed 40 or 10 % of the AL intake lost body energy, although only those fed 10 % of the AL allowance lost weight. The rabbits in the group fed AL gained 35 g·d-1 throughout the experiment. Efficiency of utilization of digestible energy for body energy retention was 0.436. Digestible energy (DE) of this diet needed for zero energy change was 563 kJ DE·kg-0.75 liveweight. (© Elsevier / Inra).