Growth performance of African mudfish <i>Clarias gariepinus</i> Fingerling fed graded poultry offal meal as a replacement of fishmeal

Abstract

Twelve week feeding experiment was conducted to evaluate five different mixing ratios of Poultry Offal Meal (POM) and Fishmeal (FM) at a graded level of 0:100%, 25:75%, 50:50%, 75:25%, 100:0% FM: POM and a positive control of commercial diet, Clarias gariepinus fingerlings triplicate groups of 10 fingerlings with mean weight of 5.60g were used in 18 plastic tanks and fed 5% body weight. The SGR ranged from 1.03g/fish/day to 1.08g/fish/day with diet 100% POM having the lowest, 50% poultry offal meal gave the best value for Feed Conversion Ratio (2.07. 0.01), protein intake (7.87±0.02), protein efficiency ratio ((1.05±0.01) , nitrogen metabolism (449.58±0.90), GFCE (48.58), and ANPU (44.32) and Showed significant difference (P˂0.05) with other diets. This study showed that fishmeal can be successfully replaced by 50% POM in the diets of Clarias gariepinus without any adverse effect on its growth performance and feed utilization.

Keyword: Clarias gariepinus, poultry offal, fingerlings, growth, fish meal.