Abstract:
The research was conducted at College 'of Agriculture And Environmental Sciences animal
farm with the objective of evaluating the potential use of Fish offal (FO), which was
regarded as a waste and polluting the environment damped at the shore by fishermen, as a
protein source feed for growing 4!oiler chicks. FO of three fish species (tilapia, cat fish,
and labeobarbus) was collected from the western side of lake Tana. The FO was prepared
into two Local fish meals (LFMs) and one fermented fish silage (FFS). LFM was the
composition of three fish species of equal proportion on DM basis. Whereas, the second
local tilapia meal (LTM) was prepared from tilapia species only and the third, FFS,
prepared by fermenting the three fish species of the same proportion using Effective
Microorganisms (EM). The feeding experiment had four treatments: T-l (control), cornfull
fatted soybean (FFSB) based, without animal protein; and FO based meals; T-2
(LFM), T-3 (FFS); and T-4 (LTM) partially substituting FFSB at 5% level. Experimental
animals were 180; cne day old Hubbard Classic broiler chicks and the feeding lasted for
42 days. The experimental design we used was completely randomized design (CRD). The
result showed in the entire experiment, Feed intake (Fl), body weight change (BWC) and
average daily weight gain (ADG) were significantly (p < 0.05) affected by diet that T-l
was lower than FO based treatment diets. During the starter period, in BWC and ADG, T1
and T-4 were the least significant (p < O. (i5) and T-3 the highest significant (p < 0.05)
among all diets. Whereas, during the finisher period, T-4 was significantly (p < 0.05) the
highest in BWC and ADG. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) among treatment
groups in feed conversion ratio (FCR) but numerically, during the starter period, T-3 was
the highest whereas during the finisher period T-4 was the highest, in efficiency. Mortality
in percentage was T-1 (11.11), T-2(2.22), T-3(0) and T-4(4.44). The live body weight,
abdominal fat and gizzard percentages in T-l were significantly (p>0.05) lower than FO
based diets except in heart and liver weight percentages. Species difference didn't affect an
and local fish meal