Genetic variability of the resistance for three types of enteropathy in the growing rabbit
Abstract
This paper describes the genetic variability for the resistance to three digestive stresses in the growing rabbit: after inoculation of coccidia (trial bcoccidiaQ), with a fibre deficient diet (trial bFDQ), and after experimental reproduction of epizootic rabbit enteropathy (trial bEREQ). Genetic variability was analysed from a sample of 48 sires, which produced the experimental young rabbits. These animals were examined on D0, D4, D11, D18, D25 and D32 after weaning (at 30 days old). Three clinical symptoms were checked: bloated abdomen, diarrhoea and mucus. Mortality and clinical symptoms were used to assess an individual response to each digestive stress. Two binary indexes were defined to describe this rabbit individual response. The first one (bAliveQ) dealt with mortality. The second (bTolerantQ) dealt with mortality and morbidity. bAliveQ, and btolerantQ percentages were low for the bcoccidiaQ trial (61% and 23% respectively), high for the bFDQ trial (75% and 36% respectively) and intermediate for the bEREQ trial (66% and 37% respectively). The sire effect was significant for each index in the bcoccidiaQ and the bFDQ trials. The sire effect was significant for the btolerantQ index in the bEREQ trial. Correlations between sire rankings for the two indexes of one trial were often significant. Correlations between sire rankings for indexes of bcoccidiaQ and bFDQ trials were weakly significant. Our results demonstrate that there is a genetic variability for the resistance to three different enteropathies.