EFFECT OF USING ONION SEED AND MORINGA SEED OIL ON PRODUCTIVE AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PERFORMANCE OF GROWING RABBITS UNDER HOT CLIMATE CONDITIONS.

Abstract

A completely random experiment was conducted to evaluate onion and moringa seed oils or their mixture under climate summer conditions on growth performance, carcass traits, rectal temperature, respiration rate, blood biochemistry, digestibility coefficients, and economic efficiency of growing rabbits, from June, to August, 2015.A total of 108 Bauscat rabbits, weaned at 5 weeks of age with an average initial body weight of 528.80 ± 1.49,g were randomly distributed into four experimental treatments (27 rabbits/ each) and each treatment was subdivided four 3 replicates of nine rabbits each. Rabbits were fed the basal diet either un supplemented or supplemented with 1g onion seed oil/Kg diet, or 1gmoringaseed oil/Kg diet and their combination 0.5 g onion seed oil + 0.5 g moringa oil/Kg diet throughout the whole experimental period which lasted for 3 months. The experimental basal diet was isonitrogenous (CP=17.0 %) and isocaloric (2536 Kcal/Kg DE). Results obtained showed thatthe percentages of total saturated fatty acids (TSFA) in moringa oil (23.88%) were higher than in onion oil (8.71%). Moringa oil contains a high level of monounsaturated fatty acids (MUSFAs) especially oleic acid (71.43%) than onion oil (8.71%). Total unsaturated fatty acids (TUSFAs), especially PUSFAs (linoleic) in onion oil were higher than that in moringa oil .Under the high ambient temperatures final body weight, daily gain and total gain of growing rabbits were significantly (P ≤ 0.05) increased and feed conversion values were improved with dietary supplementation with either moringa oil or onion oil and their mixture compared with those of the control group from 5-17 weeks of age. However, feed intake and viability rate were not significantly influenced by experimental dietary