The present work was carried out in order to study the effects of diet supplementation withy Zinc-Bacetracin (0.5 g/kg), Porzyme (1.0 g/kg) and Primalac (1.0 g/kg) as different feed additives for NZW growing rabbits on their growing performance, feed utilization, carcass traits, blood plasma constituents as well as feed cost and economic efficiency.
The obtained results can be summarized as follows:- All feed additives slightly increased live body weight at 13 weeks of age, and Zinc-Bacetracin supplemented group was the best. Daily weight gain was not significantly affected by feed additives type through the study. The feed additives supplemented group were slightly better than the control group at 7-10, 10-13 and 7-13 weeks of age. The feed additives supplementation significantly (p ≤ 0.01) increased daily feed intake of rabbits at most ages studied. The same trend was found at the periods 7-10, 10-13 and 7-13 weeks of age. Feed conversion ratios were slightly better in the feed additives supplemented groups than the control at all ages. The PCR, EEU and PI values of the feed additives supplemented groups were slightly better than that of the control group at all intervals. Digestibility coefficients of all nutrients and nutritive value (TDN and DCP) were not significantly affected by the type of feed additives. The relative weight of all carcass and offal traits were not significantly affected with feed additives supplementation. Although, the relative weight of edible parts (dressed weight) did not obviously changed, its absolute weight was significantly (p ≤ 0.01) increased. Most of plasma constituents slightly changed among dietary treatments without any consistent trend. The addition of all feed additives to the control diet reduced feed cost/kg gain and elevated the economic efficiency than the control.
The obtained results showed that the enzyme preparation (Porzyme) and probiotics (Primalac) are good alternatives for antibiotic (Zinc-bacetracin) as growth promoters in rabbit diets.