Effect of different medicinal plant seeds residues on the nutritional and reproductive performance of adult male rabbits

A total number of 50 male growing New Zealand rabbits were allotted and randomly divided into 5 equal groups, to study the effects of using radish, rocket and black cumin meal (at a level of 50%, respectively) and mixture of these meals at a level of 17% approximately for each as a replacement of soybean meal, on growth performance, semen characteristics, hemogram and serum biochemical parameters. Each group received diets containing nearly equal ratio of C/P under the same managerial conditions. Daily body weight gain showed a significant increment by 19.3, 19.4 and 14.2% and reduced by 20.0% for radish, rocket, mixture and black cumin diets, respectively compared to the control diet. In addition, daily feed intake for rabbit showed a significant increment by 4.9, 10.9 and 4.3% and declined by 9.4% for radish, rocket, mixture and black cumin diets, respectively compared to the control diet. Best feed to gain ratio was recorded for radish, mix ture and rocket meals compared to the control diet. The semen characteristics revealed that the black cumin and the mixture diets gave the best result in case of reaction time, latency period, volume, motile sperm percentage, sperm concentration per mL, total sperm per ejaculate, total motile sperm and total function sperm fraction. On the other hand, radish showed good results concerning motile sperm percentage, motility percentage after one hour and the resazurin reduction activity. Feeding radish or mixture meals significantly decreased free radicals production in the seminal plasma. Addition of tested materials in the experimental diets of adult rabbits improved glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT) and glutamic pyruvic transaminase (GPT) activities and urea with no changes were observed for creatinine. To conclude, the inclusion of a mixture of equal quantities from radish, rocket and black cumin meals on the expense of 50% soybean meal protein caused improving in sem e n characteristics and nutritional performance with reduction of free radicals in male rabbits.