An experiment was designed to study the effect of partial or complete substitution of cucumber vines straw (CVS) for dietary clover hay in presence or absence of a prebiotic or multi-enzyme addition on growth performance of New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits. Dietary CVS was added at levels of 0, 7.5, 15, 22.5 and 30% instead of 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% clover hay, respectively. Rabbits were fed their respective experimental diets and managed similarly during the period from 6 to 12 weeks of age. The response of rabbits to dietary treatments were evaluated as live body weight, daily weight gain, daily feed intake, feed conversion, performance index, economical efficiency. The obtained results could be summarized as follows:
Rabbits fed CVS-containing diets up to 22.5% (equivalent to 75% of clover hay) achieved comparable growth performance and economic efficiency to those of the control group. When the dietary inclusion level of CVS completely replaced clover hay (reached 30 %) growth performance and EE were negatively affected. Dietary supplementation with prebiotic (Mannan oligosaccharides, MOS) or enzyme preparation (Natuzyme, NZ) to the diet containing 30 % CVS restored the normal values of growth performance and economic efficiency attained by the control rabbits. Conclusively, dietatry CVS can be successfully used till 22.5% for feeding growing rabbits without adverse effects on growth performance; such a level could be raised to 30% via dietary supplementation with 1g NZ or MOS/kg diet.