Tropicultura (Jan 2002)
The Production Performance of Broiler Birds as Affected by the Replacement of Fish Meal by Maggot Meal in the Starter and Finisher Diets
Abstract
The effect of replacing fish meal with maggot meal in the starter and grower-finisher diets on the production performances of broiler chickens was studied. For both the starter and the grower-finisher periods, total weight gain in the control group receiving exclusively fish meal was significantly (P< 0.05) lower than that of birds receiving the diet containing the largest amount of maggot meal. No significant difference (P> 0.05) was detected among treatment groups for feed conversion ratio for both the starter and grower-finisher periods. No significant difference was detected among treatment groups for either hot carcass yield or proportion of different parts of the carcass, although increasing the amount of maggot meal in the diet tended to increased proportion of liver and gizzard. Although no significant difference was recorded among treatment groups for the feed cost for the production of one kg of live weight, there was a 4 to 16% reduction in cost of production as compared to the control group for both the starter and the grower-finisher periods. It was concluded that from the technical and economic point of view, maggot meal could replace fish meal, but that the earlier should be analysed for toxicity before it could be widely used for broiler chicken feeding.
