Rafik Belabbas

• Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
• Assistant professor at Higher National Veterinary School

Relatively, the epidemiology of giardiasis in rabbits has been poorly documented worldwide. In Algeria, few molecular studies reporting G. duodenalis genotyping/subtyping have been conducted only in livestock and in humans. The present study aims to perform genotyping and subtyping of G. duodenalis in farmed rabbits using multilocus sequence typing...

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammation impairs sperm function; however, its impact on ejaculated rabbit sperm remains unexplored. This dose-response study aims to determine the LPS concentration that negatively affects sperm motility in vitro, while also providing the first identification of TLR4 localization on rabbit spermatozoa. Additiona...

This study aimed to analyze the effect of reducing litter size variability on growth rate, carcass traits, and meat quality in rabbits. Two divergent lines selected by litter size variability were compared: a line selected to reduce litter size variability (HO) and one selected to increase litter size variability (HE). All animals were fed the same...

The accumulation of heavy metals in foodstuffs poses a big threat to consumer health, as they are highly toxic. The main purposes of this study were to determine the levels of cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) contamination in the liver and meat of two species of poultry (chicken and turkey) marketed in Algiers city (Algeria) and to check whether they pos...

Prickly pear (Opuntia ficus indica L.) could be used in rabbit nutrition in compliance with circular economy principles, global warming issues, and reduction of production costs. This study aims to evaluate the effects of dietary incorporation of prickly pear seed cake (PPSC) on growth, physiological, and histometric parameters in rabbits. A total...

Currently, the use of n-3 polyunsaurated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) in rabbits’ nutrition represents an interesting strategy not only to enhance the productive and reproductive performances, but also the nutritional value of the meat, potentially creating a functional food for humans. This study investigated the effects of n-3 PUFA dietary integration...

Simple Summary Different sources of omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids can influence various aspects of female reproduction. This study evaluated the effects of dietary n-3 inclusion with extruded linseed and algae Padina pavonica extract on the reproductive performance and milk production of nulliparous female rabbits. In this study, the dietary inclusion...

The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of season of birth, physiological status of females, parity order, nest quality, place of birth, occurrence of cannibalism in litter, and sex of kits on their body weight at birth and growth in a preweaning period. A total of 1696 rabbit kits born during 3 parities and from 82 rabbit does were...

Simple Summary In order to reduce mortality rates during the suckling period, increasing the kit’s weight during the first days of life could be a selection criterion in rabbit meat breeding programs. The response to selection is directly related to the heritability of the selected trait. The estimates of heritability (h²) for individual weight wer...

In rabbits, ovulation rate is, together with prenatal survival, one of the main limiting factors for litter size. Both components are affected by several factors related to females and their environment. Thus, understanding these components and their factors of variation is key in designing diets, optimisation of reproductive performance and geneti...

In the present study, we evaluated the effect of various concentrations of date palm pollen (DPP) aqueous extract on rabbit sperm during storage at 4°C for 48 h. Semen was collected from old and young rabbit bucks using an artificial vagina and initially evaluated for sperm quality. The sperm were diluted in Tris buffer supplemented with (20, 40, 8...

The aim of this study was to analyse the relationships between kit birth weight and litter size with kit survival from birth to weaning, and to estimate the effects of place of birth, nest quality, cannibalism, lactation, parity order, season and sex. A total of 1696 kits from 82 females of the ITLEV2006 synthetic line were used in this study. A lo...

Simple Summary Kit survival in the first hours after farrowing has been related to the birth weight of kits. In prolific species, newborn survival is controlled both by the genes of the newborns that are involved in vitality, health, and growth (direct genetic effects), and by the dam effects that affect milk yield and other mothering abilities (ma...

The aim of this study was to estimate the effects of asynchrony between embryo development and uterine environment on embryo survival and subsequent foetal development in rabbits. Embryos at 48 and 72 hours post-coitum (p.c.) were transferred into 22 females at 48 h of pseudopregnancy and into 20 females at 72 h of pseudopregnancy. Similar embryoni...

Background: Comparative features of embryos developed under in vitro and in vivo conditions are particularly important in designing embryo transfer procedures that fulfil embryo-recipient synchronization requirements. Objective: To determine the degree of asynchrony in rabbit embryo development between cultured and in vivo embryos. Methods: A tot...

The aim of this work is to study the relationship between the anogenital distance (AGD) measured before mating and plasma cholesterol and hormone concentrations (testosterone and 17-βestradiol), sexual behavior, litter size and its biological components (ovulation rate and prenatal survival) and the sex ratio in rabbits. In total, 48 rabbit does we...

Due to their global distribution, invasive history, and unique characteristics, European rabbits are recognizable almost anywhere on our planet. Although they are members of a much larger group of living and extinct mammals [Mammalia, Lagomorpha (rabbits, hares, and pikas)], the group is often characterized by several well-known genera (e.g., Oryct...

Date palm pollen (DPP) has been widely tested in vitro in preservation of spermatozoa of different farm animals except in rabbits. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of various concentrations (20, 40, 80 mg/mL) of DPP aqueous extract on epididymal and ejaculated rabbit spermatozoa during in vitro incubation at 37 °C during 120 m...

p>The aim of this study was to estimate the limiting litter size components in rabbit females from a Synthetic line (n=32) and a Local population (n=34). Ovulation rate, number of implanted and live embryos were counted by laparoscopy at 12 d after mating. Prolificacy (total newborn, number born alive and mortality) and embryonic, foetal and prenat...

The objective of this study was to obtain heritability estimates for reproductive (litter size at birth, number born alive, litter size at weaning) and growth traits (individual weaning weight, individual weight at the end of the fattening period), then determine the genetic correlation between them in a synthetic rabbit line. A total of 805 female...

Aim: The objective of this work was to study the growth performance, slaughter traits, meat quality, and metabolic profile in rabbits of local Algerian population and a synthetic line. Materials and Methods: In total, 120 weaned rabbits were used (60 per group). Growth traits were recorded from weaning (35 days) to slaughter (91 days). At slaughte...

To investigate the effect of dietary energy content on growth, carcass traits, nutrient digestibility, digestive tract morphometry and blood metabolites of young local rabbits, 105 local rabbits 42-day-old, weighing 1113 ±58 g, were randomly assigned to the 3 treatment groups (7 replicates of 5 rabbits each). Rabbits were fed ad libitum with three...

p>A higher litter size at birth has been reported in female rabbits from a Synthetic line than in those of the Local Algerian population. The aim of this work was to analyse whether this difference in litter size was due to a higher ovulation rate and/or embryonic survival rate in Synthetic line than in Local Algerian population. In total, 24 multi...

Nulliparous (n = 16) and primiparous rabbit does (n = 21), housed in individual cages, were the subject of an experiment to study the effect of Ano - Genital Distance (AGD) on some characteristics of reproduction (sexual behavior, reproductive performances and the main biological components of litter size). The observations on the animals focused o...

To establish a morphological index of sexual behaviour in rabbits of Algerian local population, the external characteristics of the vulva (colour and turgidity) were recorded before each presentation to the buck, on 104 primiparous lactating does, between day 11 and day 14 of the postpartum. The results, obtained on 172 observations, show a categor...

The objective of our work was to study the effect of parity the parity of the does, the intra uterine position and vascularization of the fetuses and their number per horn on, available uterine space and placentae development in the rabbit at two stages (nulliparous and primiparous). To this aim, twenty rabbit does of locally Algerian population we...

Effect of season of birth on onset of puberty and semen characteristics in male rabbits of local Algerian population (Oryctolagus cuniculus)The objective of this work was to determine the effect of birth season on the puberty age of male rabbit from local Algerian population (Oryctolaguscuniculus). Another objective was to study the quantitative an...

The objective of our work was to study, in the local rabbit does, the prolificacy and its principal biological components in the course of the two first parities. In all, 20 does of local population were divided into two groups (10 nulliparous and 10 multiparous). After mating, females were been scarified at 28 days of pregnancy to measure the prol...