Effects of Dietary Riboflavin Supplemental Level on Meat Quality, Hair Follicle Development and Immune Performance of Growing Rex Rabbits
This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary nicotinic acid supplemental level on meat quality,hair follicle development and immune performance of growing Rex rabbits.A total of 160 three-month-old Rex rabbits with similar body weight were randomly divided into 4 groups with 40 replicates per group and 1 rabbit per replicate.Rabbits in the control group were fed a basal diet,and the others in the experimental groups were fed the experimental diets supplemented with 3,6 and 12 mg/kg riboflavin,respectively.The pre-test period lasted for 7 days,and the experimental period lasted for 53 days.The results showed that compared with the control group,dietary supplemented with 6 and 12 mg/kg riboflavin significantly reduced the meat drip loss of Rex rabbits (P<0.05),dietary supplemented with 3,6 and 12 mg/kg riboflavin significantly increased the skin total hair follicles density of Rex rabbits (P<0.05),dietary supplemented with 3 and 6 mg/kg riboflavin significantly increased the skin primary hair follicles density of Rex rabbits (P < 0.05),and dietary supplemented with 6 and 12 mg/kg riboflavin significantly increased the skin secondary hair follicles density of Rex rabbits (P<0.05),and dietary supplemented with 6 and 12 mg/kg riboflavin significantly decreased the ratio of secondary hair follicles density to primary hair follicles density of Rex rabbits (P< 0.05).Dietary riboflavin supplemental level significantly affected the thymus weight,thymus index and the content of immunoglobulin G,immunoglobulin A and interleukin 2 in serum of Rex rabbits (P<0.05),and all the above indices were showed a firstly increase then decrease tendency with dietary riboflavin supplemental level increasing,and got the max value in the 6 mg/kg supplemental group,which significantly higher than those in the control group (P<0.05).In conclusion,the suitable dietary riboflavin supplement level of growing Rex rabbits aged from 3 to 5 months is 6 mg/kg (measured dietary riboflavin level is 8.35 mg/kg).
Rex rabbitsriboflavinmeat qualityhair follicle developmentimmune performance