By Omeje, Valentine Ikechukwu
The effect of dietary supplementation of organic selenium at different levels on reproductive performance of rabbit does was investigated using 16 (12 does and 4 bucks) rabbits. The rabbits were of New Zealand white, Dutch and chinchilla breeds. The twelve rabbit does were randomly assigned to four experimental treatment groups (T0, T1, T2 and T3) according to the amount of organic selenium supplementation in a completely randomized design (CRD). Rabbits in T0 served as the control and received 0.00mg/kg Se supplement diet daily, while those in T1, T2 and T3 were given 0.15, 0.30 and 0.45 mg/kg organic selenium yeast, respectively. Each rabbit in a treatment was housed in individual cage and served as replicate. Rabbits in each treatment were mated using four bucks (one buck per treatment). The parameters measured were: birth weight of the litters, body weight of the dam after kindling, litter sizes at birth including stillbirths, conception rate, gestation length, body weight of does during gestation, litter weight at weaning, litter sizes at weaning and growth rates of kits. . Haematological parameters and oxidative enzymes were also determined. Results showed that selenium supplementation in the diets had no significant (p > 0.05) effect on gestation length, litter size at birth, number of stillbirth, doe body weights at kindling and litter body weights at birth. However, selenium supplementation had significant effect (p < 0.05) on litter size at weaning, litter body weight at weaning and pre – weaning weight gain of kits during lactation.