THE EFFECT OF DURATION OF SEVERE FEED RESTRICTION ON GROWTH-PERFORMANCE, CARCASS TRAITS AND MEAT QUALITY OF GROWING RABBITS

The effects of age and duration of severe restricted feeding on growth performance, carcass traits and meat quality of fattening rabbits wer e studied. Forty male California rabbits of 6 weeks old were divided i nto four treatments with five replicates each. The duration of severe restricted feeding (6 hours eating/day) lasted for zero, two, three an d four weeks for treatments 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively, followed by ad -libitum feeding up to the end of the experiment at age of 18 weeks. B ody weight and daily gain were not statistically influenced by increas ing the duration of restricted feeding, but daily feed intake was redu ced (p less than or equal to 0.01) by 3.79 to 19.81% and zero to 16.19 % at 14 and 18 weeks of age respectively. No significant effect in fee d conversion or mortality rate were observed with increasing the durat ion of restricted feeding. Carcass traits and meat quality were not af fected by increasing the duration of restricted feeding. Age of rabbit s at slaughter influenced nearly all carcass traits. Starved body weig ht, carcass weight, dressing percentage, loin percentage and abdominal fat percentage were increased (p less than or equal to 0.01) while gi blets percentage and head percentage were decreased (p less than or eq ual to 0.01) with increasing slaughter age. Hind- and forequarter perc entage were not statistically influenced with increasing slaughter age . A positive linear relationship was found among live body weight, car cass weight, dressing percentage and loin percentage. Dressing percent age was positively correlated with abdominal fat percentage, but negat ively correlated with giblets percentage and head percentage. Meat qua lity was not negatively influenced by increasing the duration of restr icted feeding and the meat had normal meat properties. Heavier rabbits had darker meat (p less than or equal to 0.05) and higher cooking los s percentage (p less than or equal to 0.01) in hindquarter and also hi gher pH value after storage of loin region in comparison to lighter on es. A positive linear relationship existed between pH value taken afte r 24 hours from bleeding out and pH value after storage. Cooking loss percentage decreased with increasing pH value taken after 24 hours fro m slaughtering. Nearly all the physical properties of loin meat were p ositively correlated (r=0.43 to 0.80) with the corresponding character istics of hindquarter meat.