Effects of gestational maternal undernutrition on growth, carcass composition and meat quality of rabbit offspring

PLoS One. 2015 Feb 11;10(2):e0118259. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118259. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

An experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the effects of gestational undernutrition of rabbit does on growth, carcass composition and meat quality of the offsprings. Thirty primiparous non lactating rabbit does were artificially inseminated and randomly divided in three treatment groups: Control (C; fed to 100% of maintenance requirements throughout gestation, n = 10), early undernourished (EU; fed to 50% of maintenance requirements during days 7-19 of gestation, n = 10) and late undernourished (LU; fed to 50% of maintenance requirements during days 20-27 of gestation, n = 10). During the 4th week of the gestation period, LU does significantly lost weight compared to C and EU groups (P<0.05). At kindling, C does produced litters with higher proportions of stillborn kits (P<0.05) while the total litter size (alive and stillborn kits) was not different among groups (10.7, 12.8 and 12.7 kits in C, EU and LU groups, respectively). Kit birth weight tended to be lower in the LU group. During fattening, body weight and feed intake were not different among offsprings of the three experimental groups. Moreover, the maternal undernutrition did not have any impact on carcass composition of the offsprings in terms of carcass parts and internal organs weights as well as meat quality of L. lumborum muscle (pH24, colour, water holding capacity and shear values) at slaughter (70 days of age). Therefore, it can be concluded that the gestational undernutrition of the mother does not have detrimental effects on the productive and quality traits of the offsprings.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Body Composition*
  • Body Weight
  • Eating
  • Female
  • Growth and Development*
  • Malnutrition*
  • Maternal Exposure / adverse effects
  • Meat*
  • Milk / metabolism
  • Mothers*
  • Pregnancy
  • Pregnancy Complications*
  • Rabbits

Grants and funding

This research project was implemented within the framework of the Action «Supporting Postdoctoral Researchers» of the Operational Program “Education and Lifelong Learning” (Action’s Beneficiary: General Secretariat for Research and Technology), and was co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Greek State (grant number LS9-1678). Funder website: www.gsrt.gr. Authors who received the funding: GKS. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.