Nutrient Composition of African Breadfruit (Treculia africana) Seed Hull and its Use in Diets for the African Giant Land Snail, Archachatina marginata

Abstract

A feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the use of Treculia africana seed hull meal (TASHM) as replacement for maize in diets for the African giant land snail, Archachatina marginata. Seeds of T. africana were parboiled, dehulled, milled and used to replace maize at 0 percent, 15 percent, 30 percent and 45 percent (diets I, II, III and IV, respectively) in isoproteic diets (20 percent crude protein). Juvenile A. marginata (n = 36; 30±1.5 g) were randomly grouped into three snails per group for the three replicates of each diet treatment and stocked in cages. The diets were fed to snails once daily at 2 percent body weight per day for 70 days. Performance of snails was based on body weight gain, shell length, shell width, shell aperture increase and survival. No mortality was recorded. Mean body weight gain of the snails fed diet III was highly influenced (p<0.05) than the mean body weight gain of snails fed the other diets (I, II, and IV). Mean body weight gain of snails fed diets II and IV was similar (p>0.05) while the mean body weight gain of snails fed diet I had significant difference (p<0.05) with the snails fed diets II and IV. However, no significant difference (p>0.05) existed between the feed conversion ratio of the snails on the diets. The effect of the diets on the morphological parameters of snails did not differ significantly (p>0.05).