| dc.description.abstract | The present study was designed to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation of urea
molasses multi-nutrient cake (UMMC) on productive and reproductive performances of
rabbit. A couple of experiments were conducted using New Zealand rabbits at the Rabbit
Research Farm, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur,
Bangladesh. In Experiment-I, 20 rabbit does (age 24 weeks) were randomly assigned into
four dietary treatment groups (T0, T1, T2 and T3) to investigate the effect of UMMC on the
reproductive performances. In Experiment-II, 28 young rabbits (age 5 weeks) were also
randomly assigned into another four dietary treatment groups to investigate the effect of
UMMC on the productive performance. The rabbits of four dietary treatment groups (T0, T1,
T2 and T3) in both experiments were fed 0, 4, 6 and 8% urea containing UMMC, respectively.
The results revealed that the dietary supplementation of UMMC increased (P<0.05) live
weight of pregnant does, conception rate, litter size, and litter weight and individual kit
weight at weaning. On the other hand, dietary supplementation of UMMC reduced (P<0.05)
the kit mortality, though UMMC supplementation did not affect the gestation period, litter
size, litter weight and individual weight of rabbit kits at birth. The present findings also
revealed that the dietary supplementation of UMMC improved (P<0.05) the productive
performances of growing rabbits in terms of live weight gain, feed conversion ratio and
performance index by almost same amount of feed intake. On the contrary, blood parameters
(Hb, PCV, ESR) were also not affected by the UMMC except for red blood cell and white
blood cell counts, but were within their normal range indicating the safe use of UMMC. It
was also observed that the UMMC increased (P<0.05) the fecal bacterial population, which
might be due to the supplementation of urea in the form of UMMC that enhanced bacterial
protein synthesis and contributed in raising body protein level, as well as the growth of the
rabbit. In both of the conducted experiment, rabbits fed 6% urea containing UMMC showed
better performance than that of the rabbits fed 0, 4 and 8% urea containing UMMC.
Considering the economic importance in terms of production cost of UMMC, cost was
around 15 Tk. less in each kg of feed than that of the commercial pellets used for rabbit.
Thus, the results suggested that the dietary UMMC can be an effective alternative than
concentrate feed to improve the productive and reproductive performances of rabbits. 6%
urea is the optimum level to be incorporated in UMMC preparation for rabbit. Furthermore,
considering the economic significance the dietary UMMC may encourage small and large
scale farmers to rear rabbit in a more convenient and profitable way. | en_US |
