Digestibility and metabolic coefficients of weaner rabbits fed leafy multi-nutrient mini-blocks

Abstract

Poor feed resource digestibility, metabolic rift, and nutrient imbalances are associated with various conditions that affect feed efficiency and ultimately animal production efficiency. Therefore, A 7-day digestibility/metabolic study was conducted to assess the suitability of a leafy multi-nutrient mini-block (MNB) for rabbits. The study involved using twenty-four 10-week-old rabbits, selected from 96 rabbits, and four treatment groups. The MNB was produced from cement and a mixture of pawpaw and tridax leaves, with four mixing ratios (0:0, 1:1, 3:2, 7:3). The dietary treatments significantly impacted the apparent digestibility coefficients of dry matter, crude protein retention, crude fibre, and ether extract digestibilities, ash availability, and gross energy. The control group had the highest coefficients, except for ash availability. The amount of pawpaw leaf and tridax in the diets affected ash availability. Dry matter digestibility ranged from 77.21% to 94.30%, while crude protein retention ranged from 64.73% to 79.22%. The dietary treatments significantly affected energy measurements, with the control group having higher values. Nitrogen intake was not significantly affected, while faecal nitrogen and total nitrogen excretion had similar trends. The inclusion of pawpaw and tridax leaves at a ratio of 7:3 in Multi-nutrient Miniblock diets, therefore, was found to encourage better nutrient utilization and adjudged most suitable for rabbits.