NM 26. Increasing levels of Arachis pintoi (Krap. & Greg.) in fattening rabbit’s mash diets

In order to evaluate the inclusion of increasing levels of Arachis pintoi (AP) in rabbit fattening mash diets, an experiment was carried out at the rabbit production unit of Ezequiel Zamora University, Guanare, Venezuela. Fifty New Zeland White weaning rabbits, were allocated in 5 treatments and 5 replications according to a completely randomized design. The treatments studied were: T1= inclusion of 10 % of AP in the diet, T2= 20 % of AP in the diet, T3= 30 % of AP in the diet, T4= 40 % of AP in the diet and y T5= commercial pelleted diet (control). The results showed that average daily gain was higher (P<.05) in T5 with respect to T1, T2 and T4 (23.8 Vs. 15.3, 17.5 and 16.3 g/day) and similar to T3 (18.9 g/day). The feed consumption was higher (P<.05) in the control. The inclusion of AP did not decrease the acceptability of the diet. The feed conversion was similar (P>.05) between treatments (5.2, 4.8, 4.5, 4.4, and 4.1, respectively). The feeding cost was lower in the mash diets (27.5, 33.6, 39.6 and 30.9 % in T1, T2, T3 and T4 with respect to T5). The best inclusion level of Arachis pintoi in the diet was 30 %