Effects Of Dietary Different ADF Levels On Growth Performance, Digestive Tract Development And Caecal Fermentation Of Growing Meat Rabbits

Effects of dietary different ADF levels on growth performance, nitrogen utilization, gastrointestinal tract development, small intestinal digestive enzyme activity and caecal fermentation of weaning～3 months old New Zealand growing rabbits were investigated. 100 weaned New Zealand White rabbits were randomly allocated in individual cages to 5 treatments of 20 rabbits each, in which they were fed each diet with different ADF levels (13%, 16%, 19%, 22% and 25%, respectively). The results were showed as follows:Experiment one Dietary ADF levels had significant influence on ADI and F/G of weaning～2 months old trial rabbits (p<0.05). When dietary ADF level increased, ADI raised gradually. The F/G reached the lowest (3.06:1) when dietary ADF was 13%. The body weight of 2 months old rabbits and ADG of weaner to 2 month old raised then reduced with the increase of ADF levels and reached their maximum when dietary ADF was 19% (1679.3g and 31.43g/d, respectively). The gut health of experiment rabbits was influenced greatly by dietary ADF levels, the frequency of diarrhoea and health risk index of 13% and 16% ADF groups were higher than those of other groups, and the average lasting time of diarrhoea rabbits dropped significantly with the increase of dietary ADF levels (p<0.05). There were significant differences of N apparent digestibility, RN/IN and RN among different treatments (p<0.05) and there were not significant differences of the thymus index and the spleen index (p>0.05). When ADF level increased, the relative weights of stomach, small intestine and...