Digestibility and energy retention by young rabbits fed different levels of intake

Four groups of eight young male rabbits (775 g of initial liveweight), indi vidually penned in digestibility cages, were fed a standard diet at four le vels of intake: ad libitum (AL), 60, 40 and 10% of the AL intake. Digestibi lity of dietary dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, ether extract an d ash did not differ between levels of intake. Only digestibility of neutra l detergent fibre (NDF) was significantly lower for the group receiving 10% of the AL intake. Six of eight rabbits fed the 60% of the AL intake, and a ll the rabbits fed 40 or 10% of the AL intake lost body energy, although on ly those fed 10% of the AL allowance lost weight. The rabbits in the group fed AL gained 35 g d(-1) throughout the experiment. Efficiency of utilizati on of digestible energy for body energy retention was 0.436. Digestible ene rgy (DE) of this diet needed for zero energy change was 563 kJ DE.kg(-0.75) liveweight. ((C) Elsevier / Inra).