Effect of probiotics on the nutrient digestibility in rabbits

An experiment was conducted to study the influence of supplemental Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Lactobacillus acidophilus on nutrient digestibility in Soviet Chinchilla male rabbits (20; 1 year old of 3.53 ±0.15 kg BW) randomly divided into four equal groups. They were fed commercial concentrate pellet and berseem as control diet or mixed with Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S), Lactobacillus acidophilus (L) alone @ 0.1% of BW or their combination (LS) @ 0.05% of BW containing 2x10⁸ cell/g. There was no significant difference in the digestibility of nutrients except that the CP and CF digestibility was higher (P<0.05) in the LS group in comparison to the control and L groups, which significantly improved the nutritive value of the LS supplementated diet in comparison to the control diet. It was concluded that a combination of Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces was beneficial in improving the CP and CF digestibility of the diet in rabbits in comparison to either of the two alone.