Effects of the dietary digestible fiber-to-starch ratio on pellet quality, growth and cecal microbiota of Angora rabbits

Substituting starch with digestible fiber (dF) can improve digestive health of rabbits and reduce costs. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a criterion for dF and starch supply. Effects of the dietary dF-to-starch ratio on pellet quality, growth and cecal microbiota of Angora rabbits were evaluated. Five isoenergetic and isoproteic diets with increasing dF/starch ratios (0.59, 0.66, 0.71, 1.05, and 1.44) were formulated. A total of 120 Angora rabbits with an average live weight of 2.19 kg were randomly divided into five groups with four replicates. At the end of 40 day feeding trial, cecal digesta were collected to analyse microbiota. The results showed that the dF/starch ratio had linear effects on pellet variables (p