ABSTRACT

Eighteen mature Chinchilla rabbit bucks were used for the experiment to evaluate the effect of fattening diet on the reproduction parameters in rabbit bucks, Yellow maize which was the test ingredient was abnt in the T and present in the T2 and T3 at 15% and 20% levels respectively. Results obtained showed that the number of mounts in T was (3), and in T2 andT3 were 4 and 4 respectively, reaction time in T1 was (50 seconds), and in T2and T3were 60 and 70 seconds respectively.There was a significant difference between the treatments on semen concentration, it was recorded as 133.33 x 106/ml for T1, 50.0 x 106/ml for T2and 103.3m x106/ml for T sperm motility values obtained were recorded as 70.83% for T1 and 61.67% and 65.00% for T2and T3 respectively, Semen live proportion was 73.30% for T3 being the highest and lower for T2at 60.50% and T3 at 56.30%. Semen volume was also recorded at 0.70m1 for T1, 0.75 for T2 and 0.67rn1 tbr 1'3 with T2 having the highest volume. The abnormal sperm proportion was however highest at T3 with a value of 4.68% and lower in T2at 3.89% and in T1 the value of 3.18%. was recorded. It is concluded from the study that nutrition goes a long way to affect the reproductive performance of rabbits and if they get overweight or obese could have a deleterious effect on their reproductive performance by affecting the quality of sperm produced.