Supplementation of Kitchen Food Waste on Growth Performance, Carcass Characteristics and Haematology of Weaner Rabbits

Abstract

Conventional animal production systems have put humans and animals in competition for grains. Kitchen food waste has the potential to reduce competition, particularly among small-scale rabbit farmers. The goal of this study was to see how supplementing commercial diets (CD) with kitchen food waste (KFW) affected weaner rabbit growth performance, carcass characteristics, and haematology. Forty-five mixed-breed rabbits were used in this study. Six to eight weeks old, of both sexes, were randomly assigned to one of the three treatment groups (A, B, and C) in triplicate. Rabbits in group A (the control group) were fed only CD, while those in groups B and C were fed KFW+CD and only KFW, respectively. The results showed that the body weight and body weight gain of rabbits fed only CD and those fed KFW+CD differed non-statistically but significantly (P< 0.05) from those fed only KFW. Likewise, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, carcass characterization, and organ weight analyses were not statistically affected (P> 0.05). Weekly trend evaluation showed a significant (P< 0.05) effect of the treatments on rabbit granulocytes in the third week of the study, but no effect was observed in the sixth week. Therefore, KFW can be combined with CD to feed rabbits since it has no negative effect on their growth or haematology.