Morphometric characteristics of Bambu Apus rabbit.

Abstract

Rabbit meat is a source of protein and is beneficial to health. Bambu Apus rabbits are formed from crosses of several rabbit breeds and have adapted to the environment of DKI Jakarta. The development of rabbits is expected to support an integrated and sustainable urban livestock farming program (sustainable integrated urban farming). The samples used were 65 adult Bambu Apus rabbits and secondary data from 40 adult Rex rabbits and 40 adult New Zealand White rabbits. The observed variables included body weight and morphometrics such as head length, head width, head height, chest circumference, chest width, chest depth, radius ulna length, humerus length, tibia length, femur length, backbone length, hip width, ear length, and ear width. Variance analysis of each variable was carried out through SAS software version 9.4 using PROC GLM procedure, PROC DISCRIM was used for Mahalanobis distance analysis, PROC CANDISC was used for canonical analysis, and MEGA11 software for phenogram tree. The results of discriminant analysis showed that the Bambu Apus rabbit had different morphometric characteristics from the Rex and New Zealand White rabbit. The average weight of Bambu Apus rabbits was 2473.54±480.13 g higher (P<0.05) than Rex rabbit, chest depth 8.69±1.11 cm greater (P<0.05) than Rex and New Zealand White rabbit, backbone length 37.84±3.51 cm longer (P<0.05) than Rex rabbit. Genetic distance and phenogram tree construction showed low kinship relationship between Bambu Apus rabbit with Rex rabbits and New Zealand White rabbit. The results suggested that the genetic of Bambu Apus rabbit has a predisposed to be produced as tropical climate adapted broiler rabbits.