NUTRITIVE VALUE OF LOCALLY PREPARED FISHMEALS FOR BROILER CHICKENS

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted with broiler chickens to study the effects of replacing commercial Herring fishmeal with fishmeals prepared form crayfish, sardine, mudskeeper and mullet. In the first experiment, there were no significant differences in the performance, carcass dressing percentages and the composition of the hearts and livers when any of the locally prepared fishmeals replaced the commercial fishmeal in rations. Rations without fish meal depressed performance and carcass/neck dressing percentages significantly but did not affect the composition of the hearts and livers. In experiment 2, the fishmeals were fed at a supplementary level of 7.5% and at a level (20%) in which they constituted the only source of supplementary protein. In this experiment, performance of birds fed 7.5% of the different fishmeals were similar to those observed in the first experiment. When the fishmeals constituted the sole source of supplementary protein, performances of the birds were similar for all fishmeals and were better than when 7.5% fishmeals was fed in the ration in addition to groundnut meal. The ration containing groundnut meal as the sole supplementary protein source depressed performance of birds. In Experiment 3 the total protein efficiency ration (TPE) of the different fishmeal rations were assessed. The TPE for all the fishmeal ration were not significantly different and were significantly better than that of rations without fishmeal