Feeding and management strategies to optimize fattening rabbit intestinal health

Enteropathies cause large losses mainly shortly after weaning. Management and feeding strategies are available to optimize rabbit gut health and to reduce the losses due to enteritis. All-in all-out management with a thoroughly cleaning and disinfection between the batches is a necessary strategy to control the losses. The environmental count of C. perfringens spores indirectly reflects the risk of the onset of digestive disorders at farm level. The importance of dietary factors and especially the dietary fibre level and quality on rabbits’ health status has been strongly evidenced. A good balance between low digestible fibre (insoluble fibre) and fermentable fibre (soluble fibre) optimizes gut health. In a context with high incidence of digestive troubles, a feed restriction of 20-25% in the first weeks after weaning, showed both in experimental facilities as in farms to be very helpful to overcome large losses due to enteropathy. All these synergistic tools have shown to reduce the risk for a proliferation of C. perfringens in the gut and to avoid the production of the a-toxin. Such a global strategy is the key to optimize gut health and to reduce the losses in fattening rabbits without an excessive use of antibiotics.