Proceeding of Veterinary and Animal Science Days 2018, 6th- 8th June, Milan, Italy HAF © 2013 Vol. V, No. 1s ISSN: 2283-3927 l In many countries of Europe rabbit meat is consumed for its nutritional characteristics (Dalle Zotte, 2014; Hernández and Gondret, 2006). Since the ban of the use of antibiotic as growth promoter, natural substances have been studied as alternative with antioxidant, anti- inflammatory (Korkina, 2007), antimicrobic and antiviral properties (Hashemi and Davoodi, 2011). The aim was to evaluate the effect of a dietary supplementation with natural extract mixture in growing rabbit on growth performances, carcass characteristics and Longissimus lumborum (LL) muscle parameters. The trial was performed at the Research Institute for Animal Production (Nitra, Slovak Republic) and lasted 42 days. At 35 days of age, 144 New Zealand White rabbits were randomly selected and divided in 3 experimental groups (4 rabbits/cage). The first fed a basal diet (C), the second (T1) and the third one (T2) received 0.3% and 0.6% of natural extract mixture, containing polyphenols from plants and seaweeds. Dietary integration with natural extract improve (P<0.05) growth performances: Live weight (LW), Average daily gain (ADG), Feed intake (FI) and Feed conversion (FC) in T1 group (Table 1). The fatty acid (FA) composition of LL muscle was positively affected (P=0.037) by natural extract supplementation with an increase of n-3 FA in T2 group than T1 and C. Cholesterol content did not differ between dietary treatments (37.38 mg/100g C vs 26.72 mg/100g T1 vs 35.19 mg/100g T2). Sensory analysis revealed that only the aroma was affected (P<0.05) by dietary treatments. Overall, these results highlight that dietary supplementation with natural extract mixture, containing polyphenols from plants and seaweeds enhance growth performances, carcass weight, improving LL muscle nutritional parameter. Keywords Dietary integration, Natural extracts, Growing rabbit, Growth performances, Meat quality. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Sara Chiapparini sara.chiapparini@unimi.it JOURNAL HOME PAGE riviste.unimi.it/index.php/haf Dietary integration with natural extract in rabbit: effects on growth performances and meat quality. S. Chiapparini1,*, F. Vizzarri2, M. Palazzo2, R. Rossi1, D. Casamassima2, C. Corino1 1 Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 10, 20133 Milan, Italy. 2 Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences, Università degli Studi del Molise, Via Francesco De Sanctis, 1, 86100 Campobasso, Italy. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en Proceeding of Veterinary and Animal Science Days 2018, 6th- 8th June, Milan, Italy 42 HAF © 2013 Vol. V, No. 1s ISSN: 2283-3927 a, b, means with different letters are different (P<0.05), A, B means with different letters are different (P<0.01). References Dalle Zotte, A., 2014. Rabbit farming for meat purposes. Animal Frontiers. 4, 62–67. Hernández, P., and Gondret, F., 2006. Rabbit Meat Quality, in: Recent Advances in Rabbit Sciences, edited by: Maertens, L. and Coudert, P., ILVO, Merelbeke, Belgium. 269–290. Hashemi, S.R., and Davoodi H., 2011. Herbal plants and their derivatives as growth and health promoters in animal nutrition. Vet. Res. Commun. 35, 169–180. Korkina, L.G., 2007. Phenylpropanoids as naturally occurring antioxidants: from plant defense to human health. Cell. Mol. Biol. 53, 15–25. Table 1: Productive performances on growing rabbit fed basal diet (C) and diet supplemented with two levels of natural extract (T1, T2). C T1 T2 SEM P-value LW, g initial 21d 42d 830.2 1860.9a 2655.9 846.0 1996.3b 2834.8 789.4 1825.3a 2725.2 21.02 44.15 52.40 0.161 0.024 0.066 ADG, g/d 0-21d 21-42d 0-42d 49.1 37.9 43.5 54.8 39.9 47.4 49.3 42.9 46.1 1.848 2.192 1.156 0.062 0.284 0.067 FI, g/d 0-21d 21-42d 0-42d 154.9a 188.8 171.8 142.0ab 175.6 158.8 136.8b 192.6 164.7 5,07 8.99 6.54 0.046 0.382 0.379 FC, kg/kg 0-21d 21-42d 0-42d 3.20 5.03a 3.94Aa 2.59 4.41b 3.35B 2.89 4.58ab 3.60b 0.17 0.18 0.11 0.057 0.049 0.003 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en