Topography and dynamics of spleen and lymph nodes’ morphometric parameters in rabbits

Abstract

The meat productivity of animals, including rabbits, depends on many decisive factors, the main of which are the quality and type of feeding, housing conditions, the use of intensive rearing protocols and breed affiliation. Now in industrial rabbit breeding, improved hybrid crosses are preferred, which, in terms of their quality characteristics, are significantly dominated by the usual domestic rabbit breeds. Therefore, it is important to have a balanced model with species and age characteristics of the syntopy and morphology of internal organs, in particular hemo- and lymphopoiesis, in this animal species. There have been established main anatomical, topographic and morphometric parameters of the spleen and visceral lymph nodes (cranial mesenteric and cranial mediastinal) for rabbits of the meat productivity direction from the age of 1 day old, 10-, 20-, 30-, 60- and 90-day-old. Each age group consisted of 6 rabbits. All experimental animals were clinically healthy, not vaccinated and not treated against ecto- and endoparasites. The features of the topographic location of the organs were described, as well as length and width parameters, and absolute and relative masses were determined. It was identified that the topography of the spleen and lymph nodes corresponds to the generally accepted species principles for the placement of these organs in rabbits. A relationship has been established between a sharp increase in the dynamics of organ morphometric parameters and the rapid development of a hybrid cross in the period from birth to reaching 90 days of age. Organs' morphometric parameters in general correlate with age.

Keywords

• secondary organs of hemo- and lymphopoiesis
• morphogenesis
• structural and functional organization
• organs’ absolute and relative mass
• organs’ length and width