| In this study, we investigated the effect of acidified drinking water on growthperformance, digestive enzymes activity, intestinal morphology, gastrointestinal pH, theproportion of cecum flora and serum antioxidant indicators in weaned rabbits. And thereasons why acidified drinking water promoted the growth of weaned rabbits and kept itsintestinal healthy were discussed. The experiment was designed usingsingle-factor randomized trial. Forty-eight male and48female rabbits with similar weight,35days old, were randomly divided into four groups, which were control group, pH5.0group,pH4.3group and pH3.6group. Each group has6replicates with4rabbits. The control groupdrunk the ordinary groundwater with pH of7.3. The pH of drinking water in group pH5.0,pH4.3and pH3.6was5.0,4.3and3.6, respectively. To get the required pH, compoundorganic acid was added to the groundwater in group pH5.0, pH4.3, pH3.6by0.55%,0.85%and3.3%, respectively. The trial period lasted for35days,and6rabbits each group wereslaughtered in35thday for the indicators measurement. Our results showed that,(1) Acidified drinking water improved the daily weight gain and feed conversion rate inweaned rabbits. Daily weight gain in test pH5.0and pH4.3were increased by10.39%,12.86%respectively, and feed conversion rat in pH4.3group was reduced by8.78%than thatof control group(P<0.05). Acidified drinking water had no significant effect on water intakeand feed intake in weaned rabbits (P>0.05). The treatment lowered the diarrhea and mortalityof weaned rabbits. There was a significant decrease in diarrhea of weaned rabbits whendrinking water with a pH of4.3(P<0.05).(2) Compared with control group, pH4.3group significantly increased SOD activity(P<0.05) and reduced MDA content (P<0.01) in weaned rabbit serum, pH3.6groupsignificantly reduced MDA content (P<0.05), but there was no significant influence onT-AOC (P>0.05).(3) pH in stomach and digestive enzymes activity of weaned rabbits was affected byacidification of drinking water., pH significantly degreed by0.33,0.35respectively in fundusof stomach, and degreed by0.24,0.25respectively in gastric body (P<0.05) in pH4.3groupand pH3.6group. pH in pyloric gland area and cecum tended to decrease, but the difference was not significant (P>0.05). Activities of protease in pH5.0group and pH4.3group wereboth higher than those in control group (P<0.05), with the rate increased by20.28%,23.61%,respectively. Activity of trypsin and amylase in duodenum and cellulose activity in cecum wasincreased, but the influence was not significant (P>0.05).(4) pH4.3group significantly improved duodenum villous height and reduced jejunumintestinal wall thickness (P<0.05), and pH3.6group obviously decreased ileum intestinal wallthickness (P<0.05). Acidified drinking water increased jejunum and ileum villous height, andreduced villous height: crypt depth in duodenum, jejunum and ileum, but the difference wasnot significant (P>0.05). Water acidity with pH of4.3significantly increased spleen weightand spleen index (P <0.05).(5) Acidified drinking water changed cecum microbial community structure. Theproportion of bacteroid in total bacteria in pH4.3group was obviously higher than that incontrol group (P<0.05), and the proportion of Escherichia coli in total bacteria (P<0.05) weresignificantly reduced in both pH4.3group and pH3.6group. There was no significantinfluence of drinking water acidification on the proportion of lactobacillus in total bacteria(P>0.05).Taken together, we concluded that acidified drinking water promoted the growth ofweaned rabbits, improved antioxidation function, lowered stomach pH, increased activity ofsome digestive enzymes, improved intestinal morphology and microbial community structureand maintained gastrointestinal health. The appropriate pH of acidified drinking water in ourexperiment is4.3. |
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