International Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Research

Authors
KV Absalom, OG Uzodigwe, Igoche LE, Ujah AI

Abstract
The suitability of substituting fish meal with hydrolyzed poultry feather meal in the diet of Clarias gariepinus fingerlings of mean weight (3.08±0.21g) was evaluated for 12 weeks (84days) under laboratory conditions. Five diets were formulated to contain 35% crude protein, with diet 1 containing 100% fish meal (control diet 1) and diet 2, 3, 4 and 5 were 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% inclusion levels of hydrolyzed poultry feather meal substituting equal proportion of fish meal respectively. Coppens® feed, diet 6 (control diet 2) was used to compare the performance of fish meal and the feather meal-based diets. Six plastic bowls (20 litres capacity); were stocked with 10 fingerlings of Clarias gariepinus each and two replicates per treatment bowl. The experimental fish were fed at 3% of their body weight twice daily at 9.00am and 4.00pm. The results obtained from the analysis of this study showed that there was significant difference (P<0.05) in weight gain, specific growth rate, feed conversion ratio, and protein digestibility but not in all the treatments diets. However there was no significant difference (P>0.05) in the survival rate of the fish in all the treatments except in diet D5 (100% feather meal) whereby (33.33%) mortality was recorded. The deduction from this study is that the growth of Clarias gariepinus fingerlings was not compromised by substituting up to 25% (7.21% of the total diet) of fish meal with hydrolyzed poultry feather meal.