Production parameters of rabbit farm in Malta

Abstract

Rabbit production is a strong industry in Malta since the Maltese population has the highest amount of meat consumed per head. During the project a research was done on the anatomy of genitals and all the cycle of a doe as regarding reproduction since mainly the project will focus on the reproduction cycle of rabbits under commercial scale and how it is affected by certain factors such as temperature and breed. Since artificial insemination has gained a lot of popularity on Maltese rabbit farms some research was done to see what factors lead to successful artificial insemination such as type of semen, semen supplementation, induction of ovulation, age of doe, time of rebreeding, vulva colour, season and body weight. In the last part of the project an analysis on records on two different farms was performed. The aim was to notice the differences that can occur from the analysis of several cards. To have more realistic results records from the year 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 were taken. Focus on the conception rate with regards to the temperature level was done. Analysis on what could cause the kindling of dead kits with regards to litter size was done. Another part was the time taken of market rabbits to reach the market weight with regards to their parent cross. The project ends by stating from the analysis what the can be done to improve the production and what has to be eliminated to decrease certain negative results such as low conception rate in high temperatures, dead fryers born dead and when a litter takes a longer period than supposed to reach market weight with regards to its parental cross.