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Original Articles

Effects of dietary inclusion of macaúba seed cake meal on performance, caecotrophy traits and in vitro evaluations for growing rabbits

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Pages 138-152 | Received 27 Nov 2017, Accepted 20 Jan 2018, Published online: 07 Feb 2018
 

ABSTRACT

The objective was to evaluate the inclusion of macaúba seed cake (MSC) meal in diets for growing rabbits by assessing their growth and slaughtering performance, haematological traits, nutritional contribution of caecotrophs, in vitro digestibility, degradability and fermentation parameters. A total of 88 rabbits were distributed to four groups with 22 animals each and fed diets containing 0, 50, 100 and 150 g/kg of MSC, respectively. The in vitro assays were conducted employing cecum inoculum on the same dietary treatments. The inclusion of MSC yielded a quadratic effect on in vitro dry matter digestibility (< 0.001). The maximum amount of produced gas was raised linearly with the inclusion of MSC (p = 0.016). MSC linearly reduced several variables as the nutritional contribution of caecotrophs in dry matter (p = 0.017) and crude protein (p = 0.014), live weight at 51 d (p = 0.024), body weight gain (p = 0.039), average daily feed intake (ADFI) (p = 0.001) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) (p = 0.007) in the first period evaluated (30–50 d); furthermore the ADFI and FCR the second (51–72 d) and whole period (30–72 d) (p < 0.001). MSC addition caused a quadratic effect on white blood cells count (p = 0.026) and a linear decrease of eosinophils (p = 0.045). In conclusion, the inclusion of up to 150 g/kg of MSC improves the in vitro digestibility and fermentation potential of the diets, reflecting on the ADFI and FCR of the animals, although adverse effects are observed on the weight of the commercial carcass and nutritive contribution of the caecotrophs.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq; grant numbers 443305/2014-5 and 140335/2015-3) and the Foundation for Research Support of the State of Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG; grant number CVZ-PPM-00247-16). Special thanks to Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) for the support in the development of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development [443305/2014-5]; Foundation for Research Support of the State of Minas Gerais [CVZ-PPM-00247-16]; National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development [140335/2015-3].

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