PRODUCTION PERFORMANCE OF INDIGENOUS RABBITS UNDER TRADITIONAL AND INTENSIVE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN NORTHERN PAKISTAN
K. Khan1, S. Khan2, N. A. Khan2* and N. Ahmad2
1Department of Animal Sciences, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Sheringal, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
2Faculty of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, 25130, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
*Corresponding Author: Email: nazir.khan@aup.edu.pk
ABSTRACT
The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of rabbit phenotypes and production systems (traditional vs. intensive) on the production performance of indigenous rabbits in Northern Pakistan. A total of 128 rabbits from four distinct phenotypes, denoted as white, black and white, brown and black, were allotted to a traditional (household subsistence) and intensive (modern husbandry and balanced feeding) production systems for a period of 12 months. Compared to the traditional production system, mean litter size was large (P ˂ 0.05) at birth (6.47 vs. 5.13) and weaning (5.84 vs. 4.41), while the pre-weaning mortality was lower (P ≤ 0.05; 9.41 vs. 13.6%) under the intensive production system. Inter-kindling interval was lower (P ≤ 0.05; 53.3 vs. 84.7 days) and the rate of annual kindling was higher (P ≤ 0.05; 6.58 vs. 4.29) under the traditional system. However, the mean weight of doe at first kindling (1329 vs. 1199 g) and the mean weight of kit at weaning (348 vs. 308 g) was higher (P ≤ 0.05) under the intensive production system. This study develops the first dataset on the production performance of rabbits raised in Northern Pakistan under traditional and intensive production systems, and shows that the production performance of indigenous rabbits can be improved under the intensive production systems, and brown phenotypes are more efficient in terms of weight gain at weaning and first kindling.
Keywords: Indigenous rabbits, Production performance, Traditional system, Intensive system.
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