Abstract 611

A Bien-aime, L Denaud. Faculté d'Agronomie et Médicine Vétérinaire, Damien, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Livestock Research for Rural Development 1989 1(1): 31-35.

Eight groups each of 4 rabbits aged between 8 and 19 weeks, had free access to: (C) concentrates (maize meal and soybean meal) and sugar cane leaves; (M) Maize grain and leaves of velvet bean (Stizolobium aterrimum) and sugar cane; (JF) the same as (M) but with fresh sugar cane juice instead of maize; (JS) the same as (JF) but with soybean meal instead of velvet bean leaves. All diets were supplemented with a mixture of vitamins and minerals. Dry matter intakes were: 82, 98, 98 and 106 g/d for C, M, JF and JS respectively. Maize was preferred to cane juice representing 52 versus 32% of the diet dry matter); velvet bean leaves (30% protein in dry matter) were preferred to sugar cane leaves (cane leaves were 39% of diet DM in the absence of velvet bean versus 11% when velvet bean was present). Growth rates were better on maize (18g/day) than on cane juice (13g/day), but there was little difference between soybean (16g/day) and velvet bean (15g/day). Feed intake index (% of liveweight as dry matter) was high on on all diets (average 6.2%) as was the dressinfg percentage (58.5%).