Resumen de Effect of change of cage 2 days before artificial insemination on reproductive performance of rabbit does.
During 6 months, 1552 artificial inseminations (Al) were carried out to compare three different techniques to induce oestrous in rabbit females. The first method consisted of transferring the female and its litter if any to another cage 2 days before Al (biostimulated group), the other two were based on hormonal treatments: does were either treated with 20 IU PMSG 72 hours before Al or a combination of 16 IU PMSG and 8 IU hCG (0.2 mi i.m.) injected 48 hours before Al. A control group of does was not treated. Results showed that the different treatments and the physiological status of females statistically influenced fertility and the number of born alive, but not the number of stillborn, mortality and weight of young 2 days post parturition. PMSG and the PMSG + hCG resulted in a significant (P<0.05) increased fertility rate compared to the control, in nulliparous and lactating nonnulliparous does respectively (76.9 vs 66.2% and 83.1 vs 61.8 %) Change of cage increased (P<0.05) fertility rate in pluriparous does (lactating and non lactating) compared to the control (75.8 vs 61.8% and 67.5 vs 53.6%). The results demonstrated that a fertility rate, comparable with hormonal induced oestrus could be obtained by a change of cage in pluriparous does. However, this bio-stimulatlon method is time consuming and difficult to manage in large rabbit farms.
