الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract This study was carried out in the rabbitry in Delta zone, El-Gharbia Governorate, Egypt, in co-operation with Animal, Poultry and Fish Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Damietta University, throughout one year to cover four seasons of different environmental conditions during the year of 2021. The rabbits were kept in two housing models (HM) that differed mainly in the roofing materials. The first house model is roofed by 5 cm thick wood. The second house model was roofed by only one layer of 0.5 cm thick corrugated iron sheet. A total of healthy 24 does and 6 bucks of NZW rabbits were used in this study. The animals were randomly divided into two groups, each including 12 does and 3 bucks. Each group was housed randomly in one of both housing models throughout the whole experimental period. As found in current results, rabbits’ housing roof construction consider an influential factor through its integral action with both thermo-respiratory responses and reproductive performance of rabbit does. Also, the outcomes of the current assessment highlighted possible welfare of rabbit does in wood roof housing model. The 1st model secured ambient temperature within the thermos-neutral zone for the rabbits while the 2nd model had higher ambient temperature. So, the wooden roof in the 1st model provided a comfortable zone during climatic change that could be improved the reproductive performance of rabbit does. |