©1994-2018.
All Rights Reserved. Online Journal of Veterinary Research. You may not store
these pages in any form except for your own personal use. All other usage or
distribution is illegal under international copyright treaties. Permission to
use any of these pages in any other way besides the before mentioned must be
gained in writing from the publisher. This article is exclusively copyrighted
in its entirety to OJVR publications. This article may be copied once but may
not be, reproduced or re-transmitted without the express permission of the
editor
OJVR
Online Journal of Veterinary Research©
Volume 13
(2):48-55, 2009. Redacted 2017.
Dept. of Hygiene and
Preventive Med., Fac. of Vet. Med., Kafr EL-Sheikh,University, Egypt. Present address: Department
of Veterinary Pathology, Tottori University, Minami 4-101, Koyama- cho, Tottori-shi,
Tottori 680-8553, Japan.
ABSTRACT
Mousa-Balabel TM,
Effect of cage versus pen and stocking
density on behavior and performance in rabbits, Onl J
Vet Res., 13 (2):48-55, 2009. The effect of cage versus
pens and six stocking densities on behavior and performance was evaluated in 76
New Zealand White doe weaned rabbits. In one test, 10 does were reared in a
straw bedded pen and 10 in a cage using the same floor space (2 m2 for
all animals/group). In another test, 6 groups of 6 does each were caged in 4,
6, 8, 10, 12, and 16 rabbits/m2. All
rabbits were fed a commercial pellet diet of 16.5% crude protein, 2.5% crude
fat and 14% fibers given twice daily at 9am and 5pm with water ad libitum. Rabbits were acclimatized
for one week before experiments were started. Body weight, feed intake, feed
conversion ratio and maintenance, locomotion, investigatory, agonistic,
comfortable and stereotypic, behavior were recorded daily. Our results suggest that rearing growing
rabbits in cages is
better from a behavioral point of view. Stocking density should not exceed 10 rabbits/m2.
Keywords: behavior, housing system, stocking density,
White New Zealand rabbit.
FULL-TEXT (SUBSCRIPTION OR PURCHASE TITLE
$25USD)