The impacts of the Angora rabbit housing system in KP, Pakistan

Abstract

Angora rabbits are small mammals belong toleporidae family and lagomorpha order. These mammals are distributed in many areas of the globe. Rabbits are reared in laboratories to perform various scientific researches, as a pet and for commercial purposes. The biological parameters are highly affected by different housing systems. For this purpose, the current study was performed to check the effect of different housing systems on biological parameters of angora rabbits such as body weight gain (BWG), respiratory rate (RR), body temperature (BT) and heart rate (HR). The study resulted that mean heart rate in IO, IC and OC were 39.10 ±6.32, 35.30 ±7.33 and 39.10 ±6.19, respectively. The mean values of heart beat rate on first and second week in IO were 40.33±1.11 and 40.66±1.16 beats per minute while 37.60±0.25 beats per minute in 10th week of experiment. The mean values of respiratory rate were 139.00±0.31 and 145.00±1.00 beat per minute on 10th and 8th week of experiment, respectively. The mean values of respiratory rate in IO, IC and OC were 159.80 ±19.20, 128.50 ±14.11 and 126.30 ±21.00 beat per minute, respectively. The growth parameters such as body weight of rabbits were differed significantly (p<0.05) when compared with different groups. BW was highly affected by housing system. The mean BW of angora rabbits in OC, IO and IC groups was 1.44±1.23, 1.49±0.23, 1.59±0.12kg, respectively. The mean body temperature (BT) in IO, IC and OC was39.26±0.01, 39.37±1.34 and 38.77±1.21, respectively. The mean body weight and body temperature of angora rabbits on first week of experiment were 1.50±1.02 kg and 39.06±1.11 °C, respectively while 1.56±0.25 kg and 39.12±1.45 °C, respectively on tenth week of experiment.