Forty five growing New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits aged five weeks and weighed in average 784.7±16.65 gmwere randomly distributed by weight into five treatment groups (9 rabbits each), the experiment lasted 35 days. The 1st group fed a basal diet free from Moringa Olifera Leaf Meal (MOLM) and served as control. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th groups were fed the same basal diet supplemented with dried MOLM at levels of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4%, respectively.
The results showed that: final live body weight and daily body weight gain were lower (P≤0.05) in rabbits fed different levels of MOLM compared with the control. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) was the best (P≤0.05) with rabbits fed 0.3% MOLM compared with the control and other groups. The FCR recorded 2.95; 3.17; 2.98; 2.83 and 3.24 for rabbits fed diet supplemented with 0.0; 0.1; 0.2; 0.3 and 0.4% MOLM, respectively.
The mortality rate (%) recorded zero% in all experimental groups, meaning that supplementation of different levels of MOLM up to 0.4% of the formulated diet had no adverse effects on the rabbits health.
The levels of blood serum total protein, albumin and globulin were within the normal physiological range in all rabbit groups, whereas lysozyme levels were significantly (P≤0.01) higher in rabbit groups fed diets supplemented with moringa and positively correlated with the level of moringa leaves in the diet. Moringa oleifera leaves meal could be added up to 0.4% in the diet of growing rabbits to improve their immunity response and health status.
Another experiment with using large number of rabbits and higher levels of MOLM should be carried out to ascertain the actual effects of feeding moringa leaves on immunity response and health status of rabbits.