Growth Performance, Nutrients Digestibility and some Blood Constituents in Growing New Zealand White Rabbits Fed Diets Supplemented with Eucalyptus globules

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of supplementing the rabbit diets with Eucalyptus globulus dried leaves (EGL) or its aqueous extract (EGE) on growth performance, nutrients digestibility and blood constituents. A total number of 225 weaned New Zealand White rabbits, six weeks old, were used in this experiment. Treatment groups were ; a control diet (C), T and T were the control diet + 0.25 or 0.5% dried eucalyptus leaves, respectively, T and T were the control diet + 0.05 or 0.1% aqueous extract of eucalyptus leaves, respectively, The growth trail lasted for 8 weeks. At the end of the trial, digestibility nutrient trails were done and nutritive values were calculated, then rabbits were slaughtered and blood samples were obtained. The obtained results could be summarized as follows: Providing rabbit diets with EGL; EGA significantly (P<0.01) increased final live weight, body weight gain and, feed conversion ratio, especially at 0.25% EGL compared to the control. The best FCR were reported to the groups contain 0.25% EGL followed by 0.05% EGE. The digestibility coefficients for OM, CP and nutritive values in terms DCP and TDN of the experimental diets significantly increased with EGL and EGE feeding. Supplemented EGL or EGE to the diets significantly increased (P<0.05) values of hemoglobin concentration, RBC’s, WBC’s count and percentage of lymphocytes. Both EGL and EGE significantly increased blood total protein and albumin, also decreased triglycerides and total cholesterol and has no effect on creatinine and the activity of AST and ALT. It could suggested that using eucalyptus as feed additives for growing rabbits improve growth performance and digestibility, with no adverse effects on blood constituents.