Central Agricultural University, Iroisemba, Imphal, Manipur - 795004, India.
Present Address: 1Department of Animal Sciences, CAU, Imphal - 795004.
A feeding experiment on 18 weaned crossbred rabbits, aged between six and seven weeks has conducted. The animals were distributed into 2 groups based on their sex, group-1 male and group-2 female. Both the male and female groups were fed locally available green roughage and concentrate in the ratio of 23.59:76.41 and 23.14:27.86 respectively to supply the energy, protein, mineral and vitamin requirement for production. The roughage and concentrate fed in animals contained 10.98% and 15.99% CP, 23.73% and 6.87% CF, and 11.52% and 7.71% TA respectively, on air-dry basis. The experimental feeding was carried out for 12 weeks. In the early stage of age, growth rates in male rabbits were higher (6 to 15 weeks of age) than that of female group, which coped up in the later stage, at about 16 – 17 weeks of age, by female group. Average daily voluntary, feed consumption and live weight gain for male and female rabbits were comparable and found 83.17±8.14 g and 9.88±1.97 g, and 82.62±7.96 and 10.00±1.93 g respectively. There were non-significant (P>0.05) differences for feed consumption and live weight gain In between the groups. From the results, it was concluded that a combination of easily available green roughage with concentrate (23: 77) can provide reasonable growth and effective in the cost of rabbit production without regarding of sex.
