Environmental enrichment could reduce stress in farm animals; however, limited information is available on the level of productivity and welfare indicators in rabbits raised with or without environmental enrichment. 84 young White New Zealand rabbits were used to identify two examples of environmental enrichment (gnawing sticks and sibling) influences on the behavior, production, and stress level of growing rabbits. Two experiments were done; In experiment one; 36 young rabbits were used to test the effect of sex and sibling relationship on the behaviour and weight gain of the growing rabbits, four groups G1 male sibling, G2 male unsibling, G3 female sibling, and G4 female unsibling. In experiment two; 48 young rabbits were used in two steps; in the first step of the trial the preference test of gnawing sticks tree species was performed by using visual evaluation and the second step was to test the influence of the prefered gnawing sticks tree species in the 1st step on the behaviour, performance, and stress level of growing rabbits. They were classified in to two groups G (1) with the prefered G.S and G (2) rabbits without any gnawing sticks. The behaviour of the rabbit groups was recorded at 4 week old till 11 weeks old using focal sampling technique. Weekly body weight and serum cortisole level at 6 and 10 weeks in both experiment was recorded. Gnawing sticks and sibling housing during the growing period result in improvement in growing rabbits behavior (feeding, self grooming, and social smelling), lowering biting wire and feeder, and decrease cortisole hormone level. So that this study recommends to use them for growing rabbit cages during the growing periods to override the barren environment adverse effects.
Key words: gnawing sticks, sibling, growing rabbits, behavior, stress level, and barren environment
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