Responses of growing rabbits to supplementing diet with a mixture of black and red pepper oils as a natural growth promoter

The current study was explored to examine the impacts of dietary inclusion of mixture of black (BPO) and red pepper (RPO) oils as growth promoters on growth, carcass, blood haematology, serum chemistry, immunity and antioxidative status of New Zealand White rabbits (NZW). A number total of 100 5-week-old NZW growing weaned rabbits were randomly allocated into four treatment groups in a complete randomized experiment. The dietary treatment groups were as follows: control: basal diet; BRP0.5: basal diet+0.25g BPO+0.25g RPO/kg diet; BRP1.0: basal diet+0.50g BPO+0.50g RPO/kg diet; and BRP1.5: basal diet+0.75g BPO+0.75g RPO/kg diet. Rabbits fed the highest level of BRP mixture were the heaviest, while the control rabbits were the lightest. During 5-9weeks of age, a gradual improvement in feed conversion ratio (FCR) was noticed with increasing BRP level. The control group excelled all BRP groups regarding the majority of blood haematological parameters. Liver function was better in rabbits fed BRP enriched diets than the control. A gradual depression (p<0.05 or 0.01) in serum lipids regardless high-density lipoprotein (HDL) were recorded with elevating BRP level in the diet. The supplementation of BRP mixture enhanced the immune function and serum superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities and depressed serum malondialdehyde (MDA) in comparison with control. It could be concluded that dietary BRP mixture can affect some of growth traits, improve the immunity and antioxidant parameters, lower lipid profile and lipid peroxidation. Based on the study results, the recommended level of BRP mixture is 1.5g/kg diet.