Potential Value of Using Insect Meal As an Alternative Protein Source for Japanese Quail Diet

Hatab, M. HIbrahim, N. SSayed, W. ASabic, E. M

A feeding trial was conducted to determine the potential value of replacing 100 % of meat and bone meal (MBM) ingredient as the major animal protein source in Japanese quail diets by 50% and 100% of insect meal derived from S. littoralis Larvae. A total of 360, 7 days-old quail chicks, were randomly divided into three equal groups (120 chicks) with three replicates each. They were offered three different diets 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The Diet 1 contained MBM only as a major source of animal protein, diet 2 had both MBM (50%) and insect meal (50%) while diet 3 contained insect meal (100%). Results: Partial or total replacement of S. littoralis larvae with MBM increased body weight gain and improved feed conversion ratio (p0.05). Moreover, treated groups with insect meal were economically much more profitable than conventional MBM. On the other hand, serum total protein, albumin, globulin, triglycerides, cholesterol, total antioxidant, thyroxin, estradiol-17B, and testosterone hormones level were significantly higher (p0.05) in treated groups than in the control one. While, serum alkaline phosphates, alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase activities in all treated groups were within equal range and did not differ among them. The inclusion of insect meal protein as a replacement for MBM up to 100% replacement has no adverse effect on growth performance, carcass characteristics, hematological and serum biochemical indices of growing Japanese quail chicks. Moreover, it can be used as one of a protein source for lowering the production costs of poultry diets.(AU)

1. hematological
2. Insect meal
3. quail chicks
4. performance
5. biochemical indices