Nutritional potential of marine and freshwater algae as dietary supplements for growing rabbits

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of including marine and freshwater algae in rabbit diets on their performance, digestibility, carcass characteristics, and blood metabolites. One hundred growing male rabbits, aged 30 d and weighing 783.5 ± 2.01 g initial body weight, were randomly assigned to five treatment groups (n = 20 rabbits). Five comparable dietary groups were formulated as follows: the control diet was a basal diet without aquatic plants inclusion, while the diets for the other four treatments included the basal diet plus 4% of marine algae (U. lactuca and P. capillacea) or freshwater algae (S. polyrrhiza and C. aegagropila). Compared with the control group, final body weight, daily weight gain, and feed conversion ratio improved significantly in UL group; followed by those in PC and SP groups (p