Evaluation of some animal and plant protein sources in diet of shrimp, Penaeus Indicus.

Abstract

Five animal protein sources, clam meat powder (Sunneta scripta), fishmeal, man­tis shrimp (Oratosquilla nepa), shrimp waste and silkworm pupa; three plant protein sources, coconut cake, bringely cake, groundnut cake; and the single ce ll protein Spirulina were evaluated by formulaling isonitrogcnous diets for the shrimp l'enaeus indicus, through the measurement of true digestibility of protein, protein efficiency ratio (PER), net protein utilization (NPU), biological value (BV), growth and fccd:gain ratio (FGR). Among the animal protein sources tested, fishmeal, clam meat powder, shrimp waste and mantis shrimp produced high PER, NPU and BV in decreasing or­der (P<0.01). Digestibility of prolein from clam meat powder was significantly (P<0.01) higher than the protein from shrimp waste, followed by that of mantis shrimp and silkworm pupa. Silkworm pupa was a poor protein source for P. indicus with low di­gestibility, NPU, PER and BV. In the second group, groundnut cake and Spirulina produced significantJy (P<0.01) higher growth than coconut and gingely cakes. How­ever, the NPU and BV of Spirulina were significantly higher than those of groundnut cake. Coconut cake and gingcly cake showed low growth and BV, even though their protein had high digestibility. Comparison of the animal and the plant protein sources revealed that the animal protein sources were superior to the plant prolein sources. In general, animal proteins produced higher growth, PER, NPU and BV over the plant proteins including Spirulina, but the digestibilities of the former were lower than those of the latter