Journal Article

Effect of dietary supplementation with insect fats on growth performance, digestive efficiency and health of rabbits

Biasato, Ilaria, Birolo, Marco, Xiccato, Gerolamo, Gai, Francesco, Schiavone, Achille, Meneguz, Marco, Capucchio, Maria Teresa, Gasco, Laura, Dezzutto, Daniela, Trocino, Angela, Dabbou, Sihem

2019

Overview

Background The present work aimed at evaluating the effect of the dietary replacement of soybean oil (S) by two types of insect fats extracted from black soldier fly larvae (H, Hermetia illucens L.) and yellow mealworm larvae (T, Tenebrio molitor L.) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood parameters, intestinal morphology and health of growing rabbits. Methods At weaning, 200 crossbred rabbits (36 days old) were allotted to five dietary treatments (40 rabbits/group): a control diet (C) containing 1.5% of soybean oil and four experimental diets where soybean oil was partially (50%) or totally (100%) substituted by H (H50 and H100) or T (T50 and T100) fats. Total tract digestibility was evaluated on 12 rabbits per treatment. The growth trial lasted 41 d and, at slaughtering (78 days old), blood samples were collected from 15 rabbits per treatment, morphometric analyses were performed on duodenum, jejunum and ileum mucosa, and samples of liver, spleen and kidney were submitted to histological evaluation. Results No difference was observed between the control and the experimental groups fed insect fats in terms of performance, morbidity, mortality and blood variables. The addition of H and T fats did not influence apparent digestibility coefficients of dry matter, protein, ether extract, fibre fractions and gross energy. Gut morphometric indices and organ histopathology were not affected by dietary inclusion of H and T fats. Conclusions H and T fats are suitable sources of lipid in rabbit diets to replace soybean oil without any detrimental effect on growth performance, apparent digestibility, gut mucosa traits and health.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Agriculture / Animal Genetics and Genomics / Animal Physiology / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Biotechnology / Blood / crossbreds / Diet / Dietary supplements / Digestibility / Digestive system / digestive tract mucosa / Dry matter / Duodenum / Efficiency / energy / Fats / Fatty acids / Feeds / Fish / Food Science / Gastrointestinal tract / Growing rabbit / growth performance / Gut health / Health / Hermetia illucens / histology / Histopathology / Ileum / Insect fats / Insects / Intestine / Jejunum / Kidneys / Larvae / Life Sciences / Lipids / Liver / Meals / Morbidity / Morphology / morphometry / mortality / Mucosa / Oils & fats / Oxidative stress / Proteins / Rabbits / Soybean oil / Soybeans / Spleen / Tenebrio molitor / Vegetable oils / Weaning