Effect of dietary supplementation of Albizia lebbeck seed oil on the fatty acid composition of weaned rabbits

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to determine the effects of dietary supplementation of Albizia lebbeck seed oil (ALO) on the fatty acid composition of weaner rabbits. Fifty (50) weaned rabbits of mixed breed and sexes, aged between 6-7 weeks with an average initial body weight of 460 ± 1.3 g were randomly assigned into five dietary treatments of ten rabbits per group; each group was further divided into 5 replicates consisting of two rabbits each. Basal diet was formulated to meet the nutritional requirements of rabbits according to NRC (1977). Rabbits in treatment 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were supplemented with ALO at 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4% respectively. Feed and water were given ad libitum and the experiment lasted for 12 weeks. The results showed that significant differences (P < 0.05) were observed in saturated fatty acid (SFA), polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) and omega-6/omega-3 ratio (n-6:n-3) values obtained. Rabbits fed diet containing 0.4% ALO had the highest PUFA value (54.17%), followed by Treatment 4 (T4) (53.01%), T3 (45.13%), T2 (37.61%) and T1 (26.93%) respectively. Similarly (n-6:n-3) composition in T5 (3.65 %) increased in T5 fed 0.4% ALO compared with T1 (1.38%) fed 0% ALO. Antherogenic index were significantly (P < 0.05) different among the treatments. It can be concluded that supplementation of ALO at 0.4% highly influenced the composition of fatty acid in rabbit meat

Keywords: Rabbit, Albizia lebbeck seed oil, essential oil, fatty acid.