Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2020, Vol. 51 ›› Issue (1): 90-98.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2020.01.011

• ANIMAL NUTRITION AND FEEDS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Feeding Level on Productive Performance, Organ Development and Body Energy Deposition of Male Arctic Foxes during the Winter Fur Growth Period

ZHONG Wei, SUN Weili, MU Linlin, LIU Keyuan, HAN Feifei, GUO Xiaolan, ZHANG Xinyu, LI Guangyu*   

  1. Jilin Province Key Laboratory of Special Economic Animal Molecular Biology, Institute of Special Animal and Plant Sciences of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changchun 130112, China
  • Received:2019-06-27 Online:2020-01-23 Published:2020-01-17

Abstract: This experiment was conducted to study the effect of feeding level on productive performance, organ development and body energy deposition of male Arctic foxes during the winter fur growth period. Forty-six healthy 161-day-old male Arctic foxes with average body weight of (7 285±5.77) g were selected, including 6 Arctic foxes as slaughter trial control at the beginning of the trial, another 40 Arctic foxes were randomly divided into 4 groups with 10 replicates per group and 1 fox per replicate. The foxes were offered diet for ad libitum (AL,Group I), 80% (IR80,Group II), 60% (IR60,Group III) and 40% (IR40,Group IV) of ad libitum intake, respectively. The experiment was 7 days for adaption and 67 days for trial period. The parameters of growth performance, fur quality, organ development and body energy deposition were evaluated by means of feeding, slaughter trials and chemical analysis methods. The results showed as follows:1) With the decrease of feeding level, ADFI showed an extremely significant decrease(P<0.01), ADG in group II was extremely significantly higher than that in group IV (P<0.01), and significantly higher than that in group III (P<0.05), and there was no significant difference between group II and I (P>0.05). Final weight (FW) and F/G were not significantly different among different groups(P>0.05), whereas the FW in group II were higher than those in the other groups, and F/G in group II were lower than those in the other groups. 2) Different feeding levels extremely significantly affected length of fresh pelt (P<0.01). Length of fresh pelt in group I was extremely significantly higher than those in group III and IV (P<0.01), and no significant difference was found between group I and II (P>0.05). With the decrease of feeding level, there were decreased trends in body length, length of dried pelt, length of guard hair and length of under hair, but there were no significant difference among 4 groups (P>0.05). 3) Different feeding levels significantly affected heart weight and heart index (P<0.05 or P<0.01). Heart weight in group II was significantly higher than that in group III (P<0.05), and no significant difference was found among group I, II and IV (P>0.05). Heart index in group IV was extremely significantly higher than that in group I (P<0.01), and significantly higher than that in group III (P<0.05), but no significant difference was found between group II and IV (P>0.05).Whereas feeding levels did not significantly affect the weight and indexes of liver, kidney, spleen, lung (P>0.05). 4)With the decrease of feeding level, there were all decreased trends in pelt weight gain, pelt fat deposition and its energy deposition, total pelt energy deposition, carcass fat deposition and its energy deposition, carcass protein deposition and its energy deposition as well as total carcass energy deposition, whereas there were no significant difference in all parameters of energy deposition of pelt and carcass among different groups(P>0.05). Feeding 80% of ad libitum intake (IR 80) does not affect the normal development of body organs, could ensure the body weight gain and fur quality, improve the feed efficiency and also reduce the obesity risk due to excessive energy deposition of Arctic foxes during the winter fur growth period.

Key words: Arctic fox, growth performance, fur characteristics, organ development, energy deposition

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