Effect of conjugated linoleic acid on embryo quality in New Zealand rabbits

One of the main challenges in commercial rabbit production is the high nutritional demands in primiparous females, which, together with their limited intake capacity, reduces their body fat stores and could be partly responsible for their low reproductive performance. Supplementation strategies with rich sources of polyunsaturated fatty acids in primiparous rabbits could compensate for their low reproductive performance. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the addition of increasing levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) to the diet of rabbits on embryo development and embryo quality in New Zealand rabbits. Thirty New Zealand females aged 28-30 d and weighing an average of 587.5±35 g at the start of the experiment were randomly distributed into three feeding treatments: T0: (n=10) commercial diet, TCLA1 (n=10): commercial feed +2.5% CLA, TCLA2 (n=10): commercial feed +5.0% CLA, and were fed ad libitum with commercial balanced feed containing 18% crude protein and 12% crude fibre during the experimental phase (120 d). The females were exposed to a male for mating and sacrificed at 72 h postcoitus to obtain the embryos. No significant differences (P>0.05) were observed in the final weight of the animals between treatments. However, females fed with CLA presented a higher body condition compared to the control group (P<0.05). The TCLA2 group females presented an average of 9.5±1.467 embryos recovered per female, showing a significant difference (P<0.05) compared to the TCLA1 and T0 treatments. The embryos from the TCLA1 and TCLA2 treatments presented a higher percentage of excellent and good quality embryos compared to the control group (P<0.05). In conclusion, supplementation with 2.5 and 5.0% conjugated linoleic acid does not affect the final weight of female rabbits but significantly improves their body condition, the number of embryos recovered and embryo quality. These results highlight the potential of CLA as a nutritional tool to optimise reproductive efficiency in rabbit production systems.

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