Growth Performance and Nutrient Utilisation of African Giant Land Snail (Archachatina marginata) Fed Grower Mash Partially Replaced with Crab and Kitchen Wastes
The objectives of the study were to assess how dietary inclusion of kitchen and crab waste affected the growth performance of juvenile African giant land snails (Archachatina marginata). The study was carried out in the Department of Animal Production's Snailery Unit at Dennis Osadebay University in Asaba, Nigeria. One hundred and forty-four two-month-old snails with an average initial weight of 2.0 g were randomly assigned to four dietary treatments in a completely randomised design, such that each treatment had three replicates of 12 snails per replicate. The control treatment, which is T₁, comprised 100% grower mash. The other treatments, T₂, T₃, and T₄, contain different levels of crab waste and kitchen waste supplemented with bone meal and vitamin premix. The feeding trial was for eight weeks. Final body weight, total weight increase, average daily weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, shell length, shell breadth, and survival rate were the growth performance characteristics that were assessed. RStudio (version 4.4.3) analysis of variance was used to analyse the data, and Duncan's Multiple Range Test was used to sort the treatment means at the 5% significance level. For the majority of growth measures, the results demonstrated significant differences (P< 0.05) between treatments. The highest final body weight (39.15 g), average daily weight growth (0.65 g day⁻¹), total weight gain (36.61 g), feed intake (11.31 g), and survival rate (73.83%) were all found in T₁ snails. All treatments showed effective feed utilisation, with the feed conversion ratio ranging from 0.26-0.29. Growth and survival performances decreased with increasing dietary kitchen waste. From the study, it was concluded that crab waste can be included in balanced snail diets as a cost-effective alternative feed ingredient; however, excessive inclusion of kitchen waste may negatively impact productivity and survivability in A. marginata.