PERFORMANCE OF GROWING RABBITS FED LABLAB PURPUREUS FORAGE WITH MOLASSES MINI-BLOCKS AND RESTRICTED COMMERCIAL PELLETS

This study aimed to evaluate the forage legume, Lablab purpureus, with or without molasses mini-blocks (MMB) as an energy supplement in Altex, New Zealand White, and crossbred rabbits (n=78) from 13 litters (initial age 49 to 55 d, mean body weight 1,088 g) during a 42-d feeding experiment. Rabbits fed commercial pellets ad libitum served as the positive control diet, while rabbits fed 24-h sun-dried lablab leaves ad libitum with MMB (without commercial pellets), served as the negative control diet. Diets also included lablab fed ad libitum with restricted amount of pellets (25, 50 or 75%) with or without MMB for a total of eight diets. Each diet had three pen replicates, except for positive and negative control groups which had four pen replications. All pens contained three rabbits. Commercial pellets had higher DM, NDF, ADF, and ADL (93.7, 39.5, 18.2, and 6.2%) compared to lablab forage (59.2, 29.8, 18.0, and 4.8%) and MMB (90.9, 20.5, 7.7, and 4.0%). Lablab had higher CP and EE than commercial pellets or MMB (16.7 vs. 16.1 and 8.8%; 4.9 vs. 4.0 and 3.5%). Final weights and daily gains were lowest for negative controls (1643 vs. 2336 to 2539 g and 11.2 vs. 25.2 to 27.5 g/d; P<0.05), but not significantly different among the 7 others diets. Total DM intake was different (P<0.05) for all diets, except for positive controls and the 25 % pellets without MMB group