An experiment was conducted on 38 weaners of Soviet Chinchilla rabbits to utilize oat fodder for reducing the concentrate level in broiler feeding. The chemical composition of concentrate and oat roughage revealed 17.8 and 17.7 per cent crude protein and 10.2 and 17.2 per cent crude fibre on dry matter basis, respectively. The rabbits were divided into two groups (T1 and T2) of nineteen animals each. The rabbits in T1 group were fed 40 g concentrate and in T2 groups 60 g with ad lib feeding of green wilted oat in both the groups. The digestibility of nutrients except that of CF was statistically comparable in both the groups. The average gain/d was 24.8 g in T, and 23.9 g in T1 group. The feed: gain was better in T1 (4.12) than in T2 (4.63) group. The cost of production per kg weight gain was estimated to be Rs. 28.11 in T1 and Rs. 31.36 in T2 group. It was concluded that broiler rabbit production can be economized by ad lib feeding of green oats supplemented with low level of concentrate mixture.
Concentrate, Oat fodder, Digestibility, Growth, Production cost, Rabbit
