Semente de maracujá em rações para coelhos na fase de crescimento

Abstract

Two assays were aimed in order to determine the nutritional value and digestible energy of passion fruit seed and evaluate the effect of its inclusion in rabbits diet on performance, diet digestibility, carcass traits, meat quality, biochemical evaluation, oxidative stability, phenolic compounds, potential and antioxidant activity of serum and meat and economic evaluation of passion fruit seed inclusion. In the digestibility assay, 24 rabbits distributed between two treatments (reference diet and test diet, composed by 70% of reference diet and 30% of passion fruit seed). The seed passion fruit presented 11.92% crude protein, 21.82% ether extract, 62.55% acid detergent fiber and 2251.23 kcal DE/kg dry matter. In the performance assay, 100 male and female rabbits, with 40 days of age, were allocated in a completely randomized block, in a 5x2 factorial arrangement, with five levels of passion fruit seed inclusion (0, 4, 8, 12, 16%) and two sex (male and female). There was a quadratic effect on the weight gain and the final weight, presenting the best results with the estimated level at 8,87 e 7,85%, respectively. There was a quadratic effect for coefficients of digestibility of dry matter, mineral matter, crude protein and digestible energy, with best levels estimated at 10.68%, 8.72%, 8.89% and 8.29%, respectively. For meat quality, it was observed an increase for the color parameters (L*, a* and b*) and a linear reduction for cooking loss. An increase in serum triglyceride was observed from the inclusion of 12% of passion fruit seed and quadratic effect for phenolic compounds in serum, with a lower value estimated at 5.27%. For serum antioxidant potential and antioxidant activity, a linear increase was observed with higher inclusion of the passion fruit seed in the diet, although a linear increase in TBARS values was also observed. The inclusion of increasing levels of passion fruit seed in the diet reduces cooking losses and increases the color parameters (L *, a * and b *) of meat, with higher levels of phenolic compounds and antioxidant potential in meat at the estimated level of 11.87 and 11.15%, respectively, and lower oxidative stability at the 16% level. Although the inclusion of passion fruit seed in diets improved the economic parameters up to the level of 16%, according to performance and carcass weight, it is recommended to include this feedstuff up to the level of 8% in growing rabbit diets.