Rabbit Maintenance

When an animal is completely at rest it still uses a certainamount of energy. 'f his energy may be measured by suitableexperimental techniques, and the amount of such energywhich the animal uses is known as the basal metabolic rate(B.M.R.). In the case of the domestic rabbit this basalmetabolic rate has been measured on many occasions. Titus,in addition to the basal metabolic energy required, if theanimal is to move about, digest its food etc., more energy willbe required. It is common practice to double the basalmetabolic rate to arrive at a figure for the amount of energywhich the rabbit requires to maintain itself in good health butwithout increasing or decreasing in weight. The amount ofmaintenance energy will depend on the size or weight of therabbit, and will decrease in proportion as the animal getslarger. Details of the theoretical amounts of energy requiredby various sizes of rabbits, based on double the B.M.R. aregiven in table 2. By calculating the energy values of differentrations which will maintain the rabbit in equilibrium, andthe various standards suggested by various research workers, afurther column has been calculated, which gives the actualenergy requirements. These will be seen to compare verywell with the theoretical requirements.

As well as energy, the maintenance rations of the rabbitmust contain a sufficiency of protein. The amounts ofdigestible protein for different sizes of rabbits is therefore listedin table 2 as grants of digestible protein required per day.A final column of the amounts of total digestible nutrientsrequired per day is also given.
It will be remembered that t gram of protein will yieldapproximately 4 Calories. Thus a ration based on the stan-dards given in table 2 would mean that the ration mustcontain approximately 54% of digestible protein. Someauthorities consider that this is too high, but a range of fromto to 55% is quite suitable for maintenance purposes.