Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2023, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (10): 4233-4246.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2023.10.021

• ANIMAL NUTRITION AND FEEDS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Carvacrol on Growth Performance, Nutrient Apparent Digestibility, Intestinal Morphology, Short-chain Fatty Acids Content and Intestinal Flora in Rabbits

WU Diange, XIA Miao, YAN An, JIANG Haotian, FAN Jiaqi, ZHOU Siyuan, WEI Xu, LIU Shudong*, CHEN Baojiang*   

  1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071000, China
  • Received:2023-02-09 Online:2023-10-23 Published:2023-10-26

Abstract: The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the effects of carvacrol on the growth performance, apparent nutrient digestibility, intestinal morphology, short-chain fatty acids content, gut microbiota structure, and metabolic pathways of gut microbiota in meat rabbits. A hundred and sixty 35-day-old healthy rabbits were randomly divided into 4 groups, each with 40 replicates and one rabbit per replicate. The control group (CON group) was fed with basal diet, and the treatment groups (T1, T2 and T3 groups) were fed with basal diets containing 100, 200 and 300 g·t-1 carvacrol, respectively. The pre-test period was 5 days, and the test period was 28 days. The results showed that:1) Compared with the CON group, the average daily gain and average daily feed intake of rabbits in T1 and T2 groups were significantly increased (P<0.05), diarrhea frequency and mortality were significantly reduced in the T1 group (P<0.05), the final weight of T1 group was significantly increased (P<0.05). 2) The apparent digestibility of crude protein in T1, T2 and T3 groups were significantly higher than that in CON group (P<0.05). 3) Compared with CON group, T1, T2 and T3 groups had significantly higher ileal villus height and mucosal thickness (P<0.05), and the villus height to crypt depth raito of ileum in T1 and T2 groups were significantly higher than that in CON group (P<0.05). 4) The cecal butyric acid content in T1 group was significantly higher than that in CON group (P<0.05). 5) The relative abundance of Firmicutes and Oscillospira in cecum of T1, T2 and T3 groups were significantly higher than those of CON group (P<0.05). The relative abundance of Bacteroidetes in T1, T2 and T3 groups were significantly lower than that in CON group (P<0.05). 6) Compared with the CON group, the steroid hormone synthesis, degradation of glycosaminoglycans, synthesis of secondary bile acids, primary bile acid synthesis, biosynthesis of terpenoid quinones such as ubiquitin ketone, N-glycan synthesis, ketone body synthesis and degradation of cecal microbiota metabolic pathways in the T1 group were significantly up-regulated (P<0.05), sphingolipid metabolism and lipopolysaccharide synthesis were significantly down-regulated (P<0.05). In conclusion, dietary carvacrol can improve the growth performance and apparent nutrient digestibility, promote the morphology and structure of ileum, increase the content of butyric acid in cecum, improve the structure of cecum flora, and positively regulate the metabolic pathways of cecum flora in rabbits. Under the conditions of this experiment, considering the effects of carvacrol on rabbits, the recommended amount of carvacrol added is 100 g·t-1.

Key words: carvacrol, rabbit, performance of growth, apparent nutrient digestibility, intestinal morphology, short-chain fatty acids, structure of gut microbiota

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