Use of poultry hatchery waste meal as partial and total replacement of fish meal in practical diet for African catfish (Clarlis gariepinus) [electronic resource].

Includes references.

A 12-week experiment was conducted to evaluate the use of poultry hatchery waste meal (PHWM) in practical diet for African catfish, Clarias gariep;nus (9-11 g). 51x isonitrogenous (35% crude protein) and isolipidic (10.11%) diets were formulated in which PHWM replaced 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, or 100% of the protein supplied by herring fish meal (HFM). Fish were fed one of the tested diets at 5 % of body weight for the first eight weeks and 3 % for the rest four weeks. Results showed that African catfish fed PHWM up to 60% exhibited similar growth performance. The lowest fish growth was obtained at 80% and 100% PHWM. Feed intake (FI), feed effidency ratio (FER), protein efficiency ratio (PER) and apparent protein utilization (APU) decreased significantly, while feed conversion ratio (FeR) increased significantly for diets containing 80% and 100% PHWM. Fish survivai rate at all treatments ranged trom 93.33 to 96.67% without significant difference among them. At the end of the experiment, moisture, protein, and ash contents in fish body decreased significantly, while total lipid increased significantly with increasing the PHWM level in the diets. In conclusion, PHWM could be used as a protein source to replace fish meal protein up to 60% in practical fish diets. Moreover, the economic evaluation showed that a diet containing 60% PHWM reduced the feed cost by 23.42%.

Summary in Arabic.

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