The poorer average daily gains in the control animals (T0), therefore, suggests that the control
(T0) diet may be poorer in quality than the MOLM diets (T1to T4).
Normally an increase in CP in diets should result in higher daily weight gain. However, protein
increases should be matched with increased amino acids like methionine and lysine that are
normally deficient in rabbit diets for growth to increase, otherwise growth may be depressed.
The CP values (Table33.0) for the experimental diets reduced slightly as the inclusion level of
MOLM increased.The higher weight gains in the rabbits fed the MOLM diets may, therefore, be
partly due to a better protein quality, possibly arising from a higher methionine and lysine supply
(Booth and Wickens, 1988).
According to McDonald et al. (1988) the protein in soyabean meal contains all the essential
amino acids but the concentration of methionine and cysteine are sub-optimal, and that
methionine is the first limiting amino acid and may be particularly important in high energy
diets. Gillespie (1998) also reported that methionine and lysine are usually the amino acids that
are found to be deficient in rabbit rations.
Vitamin A is important in rabbit growth. MOLM is reported to have a high vitamin A (Booth and
Wickens, 1988; Grubben and Denton, 2004; Fuglie, 2005). The control diet T0 (0%MOLM)
might have provided insufficient vitamin A for the rabbits, hence resulting in poor growth, since
vitamin A aids in promoting growth in rabbits. Pond et al. (1995) stated that vitamin A
deficiency in the diets of rabbits makes the rabbits to exhibit poor growth.