ELECTRONIC FEEDER TO RECORD INDIVIDUAL FEED INTAKE OF RABBITS RAISED IN COLLECTIVE PEN
2024
Ruesche, Julien | Bompa, Jean-François | Helies, Virginie | Trainini, Claude | Richard, François | Aletru, Mathias | David, Ingrid | Garreau, Hervé | Génétique Physiologie et Systèmes d'Elevage (GenPhySE) ; Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire de Toulouse (ENVT) ; Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP) ; Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP) ; Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-École nationale supérieure agronomique de Toulouse (ENSAT) ; Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP) ; Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Ecole d'Ingénieurs de Purpan (INP - PURPAN) ; Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP) ; Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE) | WRSA
International audience
显示更多 [+] 显示较少 [-]英语. To meet society's expectations in terms of well-being, while maintaining the possibility of selecting rabbits on the basis of their feed efficiency, we have developed an electronic feeder for animals raised in collective pen. This tool equipped with two feeding stations was tested on a small group of 16 rabbits from 32d. to 70d. of age. It permits to measure feed intake to the nearest 0.5g. The animals quickly adapted to the feeder in just one day. An alert system permits to inform if an animal hasn’t shown up to the feeder for too long which enabled us to track the animals more closely. Thanks to an automatic door system preventing several animals from feeding at the same time, 87.5% of feeder visits enabled reliable measurement of feed intake. Animals had a normal growth during the test period (37.11g/d), they made an average of 102 visits per day to the feeder and consumed an average of 149.44 g of feed per day. In the longer term, the objective is to develop a 4 stations system easily disassembled for indoor and outdoor installation.
显示更多 [+] 显示较少 [-]