Effects Of Chinese Herbal Additive On Growth Performance And Resistance Capacity In Weaned Rex Rabbits

A single factor experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of Chinese herbal additive on growth performance, serum immune indexes, antioxidation indexes, the level of serum hormone, jejunum enzymes activity and caecum inner circumstance in weaned rex rabbits. A total of 144 rex rabbits weaned at 35±2d were randomly allocated into 4 groups of 6 replicates with 6 rabbits in each replicate in accordance with body weight, including control group, testâ… group, testâ…¡group and testâ…¢group. Control group was fed basal diet with 0.01% zinc bacitracin and test groups were fed basal diet supplemented with 0.5%, 1% and 2% Chinese herbal additive, respectively. The trial lasted for 7 days for adaptation and 60 days for test. The results showed as follows:1) No significant effect of Chinese herbal additive was observed on average daily gain and feed to gain ration (P>0.05) in the 1st stage, but it decreased average daily feed intake and testâ…¢group was significantly lower than control group (P<0.05). In the 2nd and whole stage, feed to gain ration in testâ…¡andâ…¢group were significantly lower than that in control group (P<0.05), and average daily gain in testâ…¢group was significantly improved in comparison to control group (P<0.05), so Chinese herbal additive increased average daily gain and decreased feed to gain ration, but no significant effect was observed on the average daily feed intake (P>0.05). Compared with control group, testâ…¡andâ…¢group could significantly decrease diarrhea rate (P<0.05).2) Chinese herbal additive increased the contents of total protein (TP) and glucose (Glu) in serum, reduced the contents of serum urea nitrogen (SUN) and cholesterol (CHO), but the difference was not significant (P>0.05). Chinese herbal additive had no significant influence on the contents of immunoglobulin A, immunoglobulin G, immunoglobulin M (IgA, IgG and IgM) (P>0.05). Chinese herbal additive increased the activity of antioxidation enzyme, and the activity of GSH-Px in testâ…¡group and testâ…¢group was significantly higher than that in control group (P<0.01). With the increase of Chinese herbal additive, the level of growth hormone (GH) firstly increased and then decreased, and the level of GH in testâ…¡group and control group were significantly higher than that in testâ… group (P<0.05); Chinese herbal additive had no significant influence on free triiodothyronine (FT₃) and free thyroxine (FT₄) (P>0.05).3) Chinese herbal additive could increase the activity of trypsin and chymotrypsin in jejunum, the activity of trypsin in testâ…¡group and chymotrypsin in testâ…¡group were both higher than those in control group (P<0.05), but no significant effect of Chinese herbal additive was observed on the activity of amylase (P>0.05).4) No significant effect of Chinese herbal additive was observed on pH value (P>0.05), but it significantly decreased ammonia nitrogen (NH₃-N) concentration and the level of microbial protein (MCP) (P<0.05), and testâ…¡group was the best among them. Chinese herbal additive had great large lactobacillus populations in cecum, and lactobacillus populations in testâ…¡a ndâ…¡group were significantly higher than that in control group (P<0.05); No significant effect of Chinese herbal additive was observed on E. coli populations (P>0.05) and E. coli populations in test groups was higher than that in control group (P<0.05), and testâ…¡group was the lowest except control group. No significant effect of Chinese herbal additive was observed on the activity of cellulose enzyme (P>0.05).From the results above we can come to the conclusion that Chinese herbal additive can promote the growth of weaned rex rabbits by the means of increasing antioxidation function and the level of serum hormone, remain gut health by the means of improving the activity of digestive enzymes and caecum inner circumstance. The appropriate supplemental amount of Chinese herbal additive is 1% under this experimental condition.