Coproduto seco de destilaria com solúveis de milho na alimentação de coelhos

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the digestibility and growth performance of rabbits New Zealand White fed distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS). The digestibility experiment used 20 rabbits (10 males and 10 females) with 45 days old divided into two treatments. Treatments were formed by the reference diet (no DDGS) and the test diet, consisting of basal diet plus 30% DDGS. The animals were housed individually in metabolism cages. The experiment lasted 14 days, being the first 10 days for adaptation and the last 4 days for fecal collection. Feces were collected and stored every day in the morning for further analysis of crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), gross energy (GE), dry matter (DM) mineral matter (MM), neutral detergent fiber (NDF ) and acid detergent fiber (ADF). The performance experiment was conducted with 100 rabbits (50 males and 50 females) of 35 days old, in a factorial 2x5 (2 sexes x 5 levels of DDGS) with two animals per experimental unit, totaling 10 treatments with 5 replicates. DDGS levels used were 0 (control), 6, 12, 18 and 24%. The experiment lasted 35 days and at the end feed intake (FI), weight gain (WG), feed conversion (FC), carcass yield and relative weights of heart, liver and kidney were evaluated. The results for nutritional quality of DDGS were positive, demonstrating that this co-product has great potential for nursing rabbits, especially the protein digestibility (74.10%) and ether extract (81.51%). The DDGS used in this experiment had high digestible protein (21.85%) and digestible energy (2.979kcal / kg) and a low ether extract value (2.39%). In the performance trial interaction between sex and DDGS inclusion levels were observed. Significant difference (P<0.05) was obtained for feed intake from 35 to 50 days, and from 35 to 70 days, which had a decreasing linear effect. There was a statistical difference (P<0.05) for feed conversion from 35 to 70 days, which when subjected to regression test showed decreasing linear effect. No significant changes were found between sex and levels of DDGS (P>0.05) for carcass yield parameters and relative weight of organs. The carcass yield with head results and headless showed differences (P<0.05), but when subjected to regression testing, the data did not fit equations. It was concluded that DDGS has high digestibility for rabbits in particular for protein and lipids, and that when used up to 24% in the diet of rabbits from 35 to 70 days improves the feed intake and feed conversion parameters without harming carcass yield and relative organs weight