Reproductive Characteristics of Rabbit Bucks Fed Diet Containing Raw or Fermented Cottonseed Cake.
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Date
2016
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Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate the effect of diets containing raw or fermented cottonseed
cake on reproductive characteristics of rabbit bucks. Eighteen (18) weaned crossbred (New
Zealand White X Chinchilla) rabbit bucks, 6-7 weeks old, were randomly allotted to three
treatments with six animals per treatment in a Completely Randomized Designed experiment. The
treatment diets were T1, (Control) containing soyabean meal (SBM) as the main protein source;
T2, Raw Cottonseed Cake (RCSC) - based diet and T3, Fermented Cottonseed Cake (FCSC) -
based diet. The fermentation was done by inoculation with Aspergillus niger. Animals were
acclimatized for one week. The feeding trial lasted for 9 weeks. At the end of this trial, 3 bucks per
treatment were slaughtered and the reproductive organs dissected out for testicular and epididymal
morphometrics as well as gonadal sperm assessment. Testicular morphometrics were not
significantly (P>0.05) affected by the treatment. Treatment had significant (P<0.05) effect on the epididymal weight and length of rabbit buck. Testicular sperm count for the RCSC group
(124.67x106) was significantly (P<0.05) lower than that of the control (182.22x106). Bucks on FCSC
diet had comparable sperm count (181.50x106) with the control group. The proportion of motile
sperm was significantly (P<0.05) increased from 48% in the control to 66.33% in the FCSC group.
It was concluded that raw CSC had adverse effect on the sperm characteristics of rabbit bucks.
However fermentation, using Aspergillus niger mitigated the adverse effect of CSC on the sperm
characteristics. It is recommended that CSC to be included in diet of rabbit bucks meant for
breeding purpose should be fermented by Aspergillus niger.
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Keywords
Reproductive characteristics, Rabbit buck, cottonseed cake, fermentation
Citation
Amao O A, Showunmi K A. Reproductive Characteristics of Rabbit Bucks Fed Diet Containing Raw or Fermented Cottonseed Cake. British Biotechnology Journal. 2016; 10(3): 1-7.