EFFECT OF SQUEEZED LIME FRUIT JUICE AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO ANTIBIOTICS ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF GROWING RABBITS

Abstract

The study evaluated the effect of squeezed lime fruit juice as an alternative to antibiotics on growth performance of growing rabbits. The experiment was conducted with thirty clinically healthy mixed breed growing male rabbits with an average age of 11 weeks old. The rabbits were assigned to six dietary treatments (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6) in completely randomized design and T1 and T6 served as negative and positive controls respectively. Five growing rabbits were assigned to each dietary treatment and each rabbit served as a replicate. A basal diet formulated as shown in Table 1 was designated as 0.0; then 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 ml of the squeezed lime fruit juice per 100kg feed was added to the basal diet to form treatments T2 - T5 respectively while T6 was formed by the addition of 55 g/100kg Oxytetracycline to the basal diet as recommended by the manufacturer.Data generated in the study were subjected to analysis of variance using General Linear Model procedure of the Statistical Analysis System software package. Significant differences between treatment means were separated using LSD. Result of squeezed lime fruit juice on growth performance showed an improvement in final body weight with the best performance (44.81%) at rabbits fed 1000 ml/100kg dietary squeezed lime fruit juice. It was concluded that rabbits could tolerate dietary squeezed lime fruit juice up 1500 ml/100kg without negatively affecting feed intake and weight gain. Therefore addition of 1000 ml/100kg squeezed lime fruit juice in diets for growing rabbits could be regarded as good practice and was advocated.