Impacts of Gamma-Irradiated Date Seed (DS) as Dietary Supplement on Productive and Physiological Traits in Growing Rabbits

The present study was conducted to explore the effect of different gamma (γ) irradiation doses (0,10,20 and 30 kGy) on, soluble dietary fiber (SDF), in-soluble dietary fiber (IDF), hemicelluloses, cellulose, lignin, neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and acid detergent lignin (ADL)of date seed (DS). In addition, this work to evaluate the impact of gamma irradiation DS on biochemical, physiological as well as productive traits of rabbits. Parameters studied were rabbit’s performance (body weight, gain weight, feed intake, feed conversion, water intake, rectum temperature and respiration rate), apparent digestibility (dry matter, crude protein, crude fiber and ether extracts), carcass characteristics (carcass weight, dressing (%) and prime cuts (%) and blood biochemistry (AST and ALT, total protein, albumin, globulin, glucose, urea, creatinine and Blood hematology such as RBCs, WBCs and HB %). 60 New Zealand White weaned male rabbits of 35 days age were randomly divided to 4 treatment groups of approximately the same average weight (15 animals each). The 1 st group was kept on the control diet supplemented with 10% DS (non-irradiated), 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th groups were kept on the control diet supplemented with 10% irradiated DS at 10, 20 and 30k Gy, respectively. The obtained results revealed a increases in SDF and IDF. The increases were linearly correlated as function of radiation dose in kGy. On the other hands, there was significantly diminished in hemicelluloses, cellulose, lignin, NDF, ADF and ADL with escalating the radiation dose. Feeding on control diet supplemented with 10 % irradiated DS resulted in a significant enhancement of body weight, gain weight, feed conversion, the apparent digestibility of dry matter, crude protein, crude fiber and carcass characteristics. While, feed intake, water intake, rectal temperature, respiration rate, ether extracts digestibility, AST and ALT, total protein, albumin, globulin, glucose, urea, creatinine and blood hematology such as RBCs, WBCs and HB % were not altered by the treatments. Generally, it can be concluded that radiation processing with γ-rays seems to be an effective procedure to upgrade the digestibility of DS. Consequently, irradiated DS supplemented diets fed to growing rabbits improved rabbits' growth performance without detrimental effects .