Sixty growing Bouscat rabbits 5 weeks old (30 male+30 females) with an average body weight of (575.33+ 12.23g) were divided at random into three comparable groups and fed the following diets. 1) Basal diet without vitamin E and selenium supplementation and served as a control (G1). 2) Basal diet+10 mg vitamin E+1mg selenium (G2). 3) Basal diet+20 mg vitamin E+2mg selenium (G3). Live body weight, daily weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion were recorded at different age studied. Digestibility of nutrient, nutritive values, carcass traits and blood components were estimated.
The results cleared that, live body weight , daily weight gain and feed conversion were not affected significantly by vitamin E and selenium supplementation. The rabbits of G2 significantly recorded the highest (P<0.01) daily feed intake through 5-13 and 9-13 weeks of the age.
Supplementation with vitamin E and selenium did not significantly affect digestibility of various nutrient and feeding values. The feeding values as TDN and DCP of G2 were the highest, followed by G3, then (G1). Dry matter (DM) intake as g/head/day or g/kgw0.75 or kg/kg body weight of the rabbits fed G2 increased than that of the other two groups.
Concentration of globuline, total lipids, alanine and activity of aminotrnsferase (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase were affected significantly (P < 0.05) by vitamin E and selenium supplementation. The alkaline phosphatase activity was increased with increasing the level of vitamin E and selenium supplementation, meanwhile total protein, albumine, urea-N, creatinine concentration and AST activity did not affected significantly by vitamin E and selenium supplementation. The carcass % increased with increasing vitamin E and selenium supplementation, while the kidney and liver percent was decreased with increasing vitamin E and selenium supplementation.
Supplementation of 20 mg vitamin E + 2 mg selenium may be recommended to meet the loss of vitamin E during the diet pelleting and unsuitable storage and to improve productive performance of Bouscat rabbits.
Key words: Vitamin E and selenium, growth performance ,digestibility, blood components, carcass, rabbits.