PERFORMANCE AND COST BENEFITS OF WEANED GRASS-CUTTERS FED DIET CONTAINING SNAILSHELLAS REPLACEMENT FOR OYSTER SHELL

Abstract

A total of thirty six weaned grass-cutters of mixed sexes of mean weight of 412.2342.6g were used for the feeding trial to assess the nutritive potential of snail shell (SS) as replacement for oyster shell in the diet of grass-cutter . Four diets were formulated to contain SS at 0% (SS,) Control, 50% (SS ,), 75% (SS ,) and 100% (SS) as replacement for oyster shell in the diet of grass-cutters. Each dietary treatment was replicated thrice  with 3 grass-cutters per replicate in a completely randomized design. Data were collected on feed intake, weight gain , feed efficiency and cost benefits. The inclusion of snail shell in the diet of weaned grass-cutter did not influence the weight gain (P>0.05) and the values ranged between 19.12g and 19.30g. The efficiency of feed utilization was not significantly different from one another across the treatments (P>0.05) The cost’ per kg feed and total feed cost reduced as the level of snail shell increased from zero to 100% in the diet. The lowest cost per weight gain per of N166.96 was reported in SS4 in which Oyster shell was totally replaced by snail shell. It could be concluded that growth performance was not significantly influenced by the inclusion of varying levels of snail shell as partial or total replacement for Oyster shell in the diet of weaned grass-cutter but reduced the feed cost.