Prebiotic Oligosaccharides as Potential Growth Promoter in Rabbits: A Review

Raising rabbit on commercial scale is a significant industry for the production of meat, fur and leather. Rabbits are known to possess high fecundity and good quality meat. The animals utilise low-quality, low-cost diets like forages and agricultural by-products. However, growing rabbits are very prone to digestive problems that cause appetite loss, diarrhoea, slower growth rate and higher mortality rate, especially during the weaning period. Antibiotic growth promoters (AGP), which had been used comprehensively, are avoided because of resultant development of drug resistance in animals and antibiotic residues in animal products. As a result, alternative dietary healthy growth promoters are in high demand. Prebiotics and probiotics are two growth promoters that could replace AGP since they boost effectiveness without having any negative effects on intake. Utilising drugs or antibiotics to produce rabbit resulted in higher final product costs from an economic perspective. Prebiotics are non-fermentable, ingestible fibres and sugars, such as inulin-type fructans, mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS), isomalto-oligosaccharides (IMO), and galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), that show immune-stimulating qualities to the host by favourably supporting the growth of some helpful bacteria (probiotics). For instance, supplementation of 3.0 g MOS/kg and 0.5 g IMO/kg to the diet of rabbits has been recommended to improve productivity in rabbits. Numerous studies also demonstrate the positive effects of dietary prebiotics supplements on the gut health, productivity and immunity of broilers. Thus, this review aimed to summarising the results in literature and to draw attention of the stakeholders in rabbit production to the potential impacts of some commercial prebiotics, such as MOS and IMO, on growth effectiveness, carcass characteristics, blood biochemistry, intestinal tract histomorphometries, and the expression of specific relative immune or growth genes.