Nguyen Thi Duong Huyen et al., 2013. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 25 (1): 19

An experiment was conducted to determine effects on growth performance and digestibility of supplementation of paddy rice and/or rice grain and/or rice husk to sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) vines fed as basal diets to New Zealand White rabbits. A total of 28 male New Zealand White growing rabbits at 6 weeks of age were allocated to 4 treatments with 7 rabbits in single cages on each treatment. The treatments were: Sweet potato vines (SPV), SPV plus paddy rice grain at 20 g/day (PRG20); SPV plus broken rice grain at 20 g/day (BRG20); SPV plus 16 g broken rice grain and 4 g rice husk in separate feed bowls (BRGH). The experiment lasted 8 weeks following 1 week of adaptation. Digestibility coefficients of DM, OM and crude protein were not affected by supplementation of sweet potato vines with paddy rice, broken rice or broken rice with added rice husk. There were indications that digestibility of the cell wall constituents was less when paddy rice, or the combination of broken rice and rice husk, were fed. Supplementation of sweet potato vines with paddy rice, broken rice, or broken rice with added rice husk, all led to improvements in live weight gain of the order of 17%; DM feed conversion was improved by 9% by supplementation.