NUTRIENT DIGESTIBILITY AND CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS OF WEANER RABBITS FED DRIED CABBAGE LEAF MEAL

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the nutrient digestibilty and carcass characteristics of weaner rabbits fed dried cabbage leaf meal. A total of sixty (60) mongrel rabbits (12 rabbits per treatment, 4 per replicate) were fed five (5) experimental diets containing graded levels of cabbage leaf meal at 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% designated as diets T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 respectively. The experiment lasted for eight (8) weeks. The result showed that,most of the carcass traits showed significant differences (P˂0.05) among the treatments except for organs such  as heart, kidney, head, feet, tail, shoulder and thigh. The digestibility result also showed significant treatment (P˂0.05) effect except for nitrogen free extract. Diet 4 also gave the highest digestibility values. Diet 1 gave theleast value for dry matter, crude protein and crude fibre, while diet 5 (20% cabbage leaves inclusion) gave the least values for ether extract, ash, nitrogen free extract and total digestible nutrients. It was therefore concludedthat cabbage leaf meal can be used in the diet of weaner rabbits at 20% level of inclusion for efficient nutirents digestibilty and optimum carcass yiels. Cabbage leaf meal was therefore recommended to farmers as a feed material so as to improve digestibilty and carcass yield of their weaner rabbits.