Abstract

An experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of dietary substitution of soybean meal in different ratios by dried Azolla (Azolla pinnata) on productive and reproductive performances, hematological and serum traits, and economic efficiency of rabbit does as well as semen quality of males. Forty mature does and eight males of Black Balady rabbits aged seven and eight months were assigned to 1 of 4 dietary groups: 0 (control), 20, 30, and 40 of soybean protein substituted with dried Azolla protein. Data were analyzed using repeated measures of statistical software computer program package. There were no significant differences among groups in number of services per conception as well as parturition intervals (days) with a superiority of 30 group over the control and other two groups. Average litter weight was significantly (P<0.05) superior in the 30 replacement group. There were no significant differences in live body weight either at birth or at weaning among the four tested groups and the 30 replacement groups recorded the highest significant daily weight gain of bunnies during the whole experimental period. All Azolla groups recorded better results in the studied traits of bucks' semen compared to the control. Azolla diets did not show any adverse effects on the studied blood parameters. The 30 replacement of the soybean protein group showed the best economic return compared to the other two replacement groups and the control. In conclusion, Azolla can safely and economically replace soybean protein at the rate of 30 in adult female rabbits' diets. © Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.