Use of biological fish silage in broilers feed: Effect on growth performance and meat quality

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate if the nutritional value of fish silage could improve the growth performance, feed utilization, carcass yield and sensory quality of the meat of broilers. An oven-dried fish silage: soybean meal mixture (1:1 w/w) was used to prepare four diets with different levels of inclusion (0%, 10%, 20% and 30%), which were tested in a randomized design for triplicate with 120 broilers in natural conditions of production. The inclusion of fish silage: soybean mixture on diets did not adversely affect the productive parameters of growth, feed intake and feed conversion ratio after 28 experimental days (P>0.05) than those obtained on control diets. No significant effects were observed on carcass yield, chemical composition and sensory quality attributes of broilers meat between different treatments (P>0.05). It is concluded that fish silage could offer a good alternative for fish by-products utilization and that the production process is an economical and environmentally friendly form of processing wastes from local fish markets of Mexico.