Interesting Study on Effect of Lighting on Does

OneAcreFarm · Jan 9, 2012

Effect of lighting schedule on production of rabbit does
Zsolt Gerencsér, Zsolt Matics, István Nagy, Zsolt Szendro

This is from the WRS Journal, to which I subscribe....

The aim of the experiment was to analyse the effects of the lighting schedule on the rabbit does’ production. The does were randomly housed in two rooms at the age of 11 weeks. In the first room, a continuous 16-hour light period was applied (8:00-24:00) (16L:8D, control group; n=60 does, 239 parturitions). In the second room, an 8-hour light period was used (8:00-16:00) which was extended by an additional 1 hour light period in the middle of the 16-hour long dark period (23:00-24:00) 8 days prior to insemination (8L:7D:1L:8D, treated group; n=59 does, 223 parturitions). The experiment was finished after 5 reproductive cycles. Significant differences were obtained for body weight of the does (higher in treated group, P<0.05), litter size (control and treated groups: total born = 9.23 and 8.69, born alive = 8.83 and 8.24, at day 35 = 8.29 and 7.84, P=0.015, P=0.006, P <0.001, respectively), litter weight, individual weight of kits, suckling mortality and for feed consumption between days 21 and 35 of the lactation period. No significant differences were observed for number of inseminations per parturition, feed intake between days 0-21 of lactation, the does’ condition at kindling measured by the TOBEC method and doe survival. The annual performance per doe was superior in the control group for number of kits born alive (65.0 and 58.8, P=0.036), number of weaned (at day 35) kits (58.9 and 53.8, P=0.046) and total weight of the weaned kits (58.2 and 52.7 kg, P=0.049) compared to the treated group. According to the results, the additional one hour lighting period (treated group) had no favourable effect on production compared to the continuous 16-hour light.

http://ojs.upv.es/index.php/wrs/article/view/944

Something to think about...

sommrluv · Jan 10, 2012

I was wondering about this...I have two windows in the bunny barn. The rabbits closer to the window are larger. I had my NZ buck there, moved him to a bigger cage because he was so chubby, and he lost weight right away.

PulpFaction · Jan 10, 2012

Ah yes, I found another article on the topic a couple of weeks ago and immediately started switching lights on 16+ hours a day. Within 3 days, the completely unreceptive does (pale, dry vulvas, would not lift or stand for the buck at all) had dark purple vulvas and were lifting enthusiastically. I am SOLD. And eagerly looking forward to trying melatonin therapy on my outdoor rabbits this spring to speed receptiveness.

Here's the other article: http://www.openveterinaryjournal.com/OV ... alabel.pdf

It's shocking the differences, actually. 16 hours was optimum light, but melatonin therapy was even slightly better.

hlboswell · Jan 11, 2012

PulpFaction":jlhi8pk1 said:
And eagerly looking forward to trying melatonin therapy on my outdoor rabbits this spring to speed receptiveness.

Mind telling me what the 'meatonin therapy' is? I've never heard about it before.

MaggieJ · Jan 11, 2012

That would be melatonin therapy, not meatonin.

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/melatonin-000315.htm

akane · Jan 11, 2012

*Gets out the melatonin* Now how to get it down a specific rabbit... Amai and "creme doe" have been unreceptive since daylight in the stable came down to near nothing and my stepfather flips if I leave a light on because the only thing he pays for at my mom's house is the electricity.

The 3mg dose in the study surprised me. Up until recently they were hesitant to let humans buy melatonin over 3mg and I still get people with small amounts of herbal medicine knowledge that flip when I say my melatonin daily dose. I was practically bouncing up and down to find it in 10mg capsules recently. It's safely tested long term for certain sleep disorders and other psychiatric problems like dementia and autism at 40mg and short term at I think more than double that so I take 20-40mg a night. That was a lot of 3 and eventually 5mg tablets which are huge when you are taking that many of them. Plus they always make them with sharp edges for some reason. Better than when they sold them at 3mcg tablets only though. That wasn't even worth taking but that was something like 10-15years ago.