Impacts of supplementing growing rabbit diets with whey powder and citric acid on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, meat and bone analysis, and gut health

AMB Express

Table 6 The effect of graded levels of whey with addition of citric acid on chemical analysis of thigh muscle on fresh basis

Parameters (%)	T1	T2	T3	T4	T5	P value
DM	29.27 ± 0.19	29.41 ± 0.24	29.83 ± 0.17	29.79 ± 0.33	30.07 ± 0.41	0.324
CP	21.56 ± 0.05^b	21.62 ± 0.301^b	22.23 ± 0.18^ab	22.39 ± 0.23^a	22.78 ± 0.30^a	0.017
EE	2.65 ± 0.01	2.66 ± 0.03	2.70 ± 0.04	2.70 ± 0.07	2.71 ± 0.04	0.754
Ash	0.75 ± 0.01^b	0.79 ± 0.02^ab	0.81 ± 0.01^a	0.81 ± 0.01^a	0.81 ± 0.02^a	0.045
Ca*	0.03 ± 0.00	0.03 ± 0.00	0.03 ± 0.00	0.03 ± 0.00	0.03 ± 0.00	0.150
P*	0.28 ± 0.01	0.30 ± 0.01	0.32 ± 0.02	0.33 ± 0.01	0.33 ± 0.02	0.184

T1, basal diet with no additives; T2, basal diet supplemented with citric acid (10 g/kg) and no whey; T3, T2 + whey powder (7.5 g/kg); T4, T2 + whey powder(15 g/kg); T5, T2 + whey powder (22.5 g/kg)
* On dry matter basis
^a,bMeans within the same row carrying different superscripts are significantly different at (P ≤ 0.05)