Some Factors Affecting Rabbit Production under Egyptian Environment

Rabbits have a number of characteristics that make them suitable as small size livestock for meat production in developing countries. Such characteristics are small body size, short generation interval and the wide spread of the domestic rabbit. In Egypt, many exotic breeds of rabbits are introduced to contribute in solution of feed shortage of the increasing population. However, such breeds are faced with many problems related to hot climate, particularly heat stress, poor quality pastures, diseases and parasites, since Egypt is localized in a subtropical environment. Among the climatic components that may impose stress on productive performance of animals are temperature, humidity, air movement and radiation. The temperature is perhaps the most important factor in Egypt because the rabbits are more susceptible to heat stress than other animals during summer season, since they have few functional sweat glands and have difficulty in elimination body heat when the environmental temperature is high(Cheeke et al., 1982). However, the studies on the effects of the climatic elements on the productive and reproductive traits of the New Zealand White and Californian breeds under the Egyptian environments, are scanty. The present work was planned to study the effects of climatic temperatures in winter and summer seasons of Egypt on two temperate rabbit breeds (New Zealand White and Californian).