EUROPEAN GROUP ON RABBIT NUTRITION

COLLABORATIVE STUDIES ON CAECOTROPHY IN ADULT RABBITS: EFFECT OF FEED INTAKE AND METHODOLOGY

CARABAÑO, R.⁽¹⁾, GARCIA, A.I.⁽¹⁾, BLAS, E.⁽²⁾, FALCAO, L.⁽³⁾, GIDENNE, T.⁽⁴⁾, PINHEIRO, V.⁽⁵⁾

(1) Departamento de Producción Animal. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Spain.
(2) Departamento de Producción Animal y Ciencia de los Alimentos. Universidad Cardenal Herrera CEU. Moncada. Spain
(3) Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Universidade Técncia de Lisboa, Portugal
(4) INRA. Station de Recherches Cunicoles, Castanet- Tolosan, France.
(5) UTAD, Secção de Zootecnia, Vila Real, Portugal

ABSTRACT: Methodology for measuring the soft faeces (SF) excretion and attempts to establish a relationship between SF and feed intake were treated in the present work. A first study aimed to constitute a collaborative database (n=364 data points) and to analyse the relationship between feed intake and SF excretion in ileo-cannulated adult rabbit (n=284 data obtained on 168 rabbits). Feed intake before (IBC) or during (IDC) SF collection did not differ between the first and second replicates of the collect. IBC and IDC were not affected by the time at which collar was placed (8.00 vs 14.00) for 24 h. However, SF excretion showed greater values when the collar was placed at 8.00 than at 14.00 (22.4 vs 18.6 g DM/d). A second collaborative experiment aimed to measure SF excretion for rabbits fed the same feed and using the same methodology. SF excretion was similar among laboratories (n=3), but remained affected by a high variability. In the two studies, IDC was more correlated with SF excretion than IBC, butthe relationship (R²<0.55) remained too weak to be used for predictive purposes.