Effects of pomegranate peel and olive pomace supplementation on reproduction and oxidative status of rabbit doe.

The current study aimed to investigate the effects of pomegranate peel and olive pomace supplementation on the reproductive hormones, antioxidative status, reproductive capacity and maternal behaviour of rabbit does. Forty does were used for the experiments. The animals were randomly assigned to four groups of ten does. One group was fed on the control diet and was considered the control group (C). The second group was supplemented with 4.5% pomegranate peel in their diet (P), the third group was supplemented with 10% olive pomace in their diet (O), and the fourth group was supplemented with a mixture of pomegranate peel and olive pomace (PO). Compared with the control does, group P showed significantly increased serum levels of gonadotropic hormones and oestradiol-17ß two hours after mating, on the 20th day of lactation and after weaning; significantly increased progesterone levels at mid-pregnancy; and significantly increased in prolactin levels on the 10th day of lactation. Additionally, the results revealed significant increases in total DNA, protein concentration, litter size, milk yield and nest traits of groups P and PO. In conclusion, pomegranate peel supplementation improves the reproductive performance of does and increases their antioxidant parameters.

Effect of dietary pomegranate peel (Punica granatum L.) and Aloe vera gel (Aloe barbadensis miller) supplementation on testicular antioxidant biomarkers and spermatogenesis enzymes in mature V-Line rabbit bucks.

Rabbit meat is considered as an economic source of white meat, increasing its production is limited by the buck fertility, since one rabbit can be used to inseminate up to 15 female. The aim of the current study is to enhance male rabbit fertility by using dietary antioxidants including Aloe vera gel (AVG) and pomegranate peels (PP). In a 60 days experiment, 48 V-Line 5-month-old rabbit bucks of average body weight (2,300 ± 20) kg were allocated into four dietary treatments (n = 12/group) as follow: CON (fed on control diet), ALOE (received AVG in drinking water; 500 mg/L drinking water), POM3 (fed on basal diet + 3% of pomegranate) and POM5 (fed on basal diet + 5% of pomegranate). Semen samples were collected at d30 and d60 of the experiment and used for analysis of semen quality. Sexual behaviour was reported in terms of latency to first mating and ejaculation interval. At the end of the experiment, six bucks were euthanized from each group, blood samples were collected and used for testosterone level determination and testicular tissue samples were collected and used for key antioxidant and spermatogenesis enzymes assessment, and testes histopathological evaluation. The UNIVARIATE procedures of SAS 9.4 were used to analyse the data, significance was declared at p ≤.05. PP supplementation improved percentage of progressive motile sperms while AVG negatively impacted it (p = .04), sperm concentration and metabolically active sperm cells were the highest in PP and lowest in ALOE supplemented bucks (p = .01 and .01; respectively). Testicular alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) decreased in AVG supplemented group (p = .01 and .02; respectively). From our findings, AVG in its fresh form decreased fertility of rabbit bucks, while PP is potent fertility boosting for rabbit bucks.