Performance Evaluation of African Catfish (Clarias gariepinus) Fingerlings Fed African Locust Bean (Parkia biglobosa) Meal Diets

Abstract

The high cost of conventional feedstuffs, especially the protein sources, due to competitive use in livestock feed and as industrial raw materials has necessitated the search for cheaper, locally available alternative feedstuffs as replacement in order to reduce the cost of production in aquaculture. A feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the growth and nutrient utilization of African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) fingerlings (average weight of 3.00 g) using African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa) meal (ALBM) to replace soybean meal as plant protein source. The fish fingerlings were stocked in fifteen glass tanks at the rate of ten fish tank^-1 and fed five diet treatments in three replicates. The ALBM was used to replace soybean meal at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% substitution levels (denoted as D1, D2, D3, D4 and D5 respectively with D1 as the control) in the diets formulated at the 40% crude protein level required for Clarias gariepinus. The fish were fed daily to satiation and the experiment lasted for 70 days. The results show that fish fed diet D5 gave the best growth parameters which did not differ from D1 but both were significantly different (P<0.05) from the other diets. The cost of producing 1 kg of feed reduced as the level of inclusion of the ALBM increased in the diets. Therefore, African locust bean meal can replace soybean meal as plant protein source up to 100% in the diet of Clarias gariepinus fingerlings without any negative effect on the growth and nutrient utilization while the lower cost of feed production has the potential to increase the profit.