Studies on Snail Meal as a Protein Source for Chickens

Abstract

Snail meal made from the bodies of the African giant snail (Achatina fulica) was investigated for chemical composition and nutritional value for broiler chickens. The meal contained approximately 60% protein, 2% calcium, .8% phosphorus, 4.35% lysine, 1% methionine, and .6% cystine on a dry matter basis. Metabolizable energy (ME) was 14.2 MJ/kg (3400 kcal/kg) dry matter. An inhibitor was present in the raw snails that depressed growth when the meal was included in diets at levels above 10%. Boiling the snails for 15 to 20 min prior to processing completely overcame this depression. Graded levels of boiled snail meal up to 15% of the diet gave similar weight gains to those of a control diet fed to broiler chickens to 28 days of age. The growth depression that resulted from feeding 20% boiled snail meal was overcome by the addition of .25% DL-methionine. A further experiment indicated that .2 or .3% DL-methionine was required to achieve maximum performance of chickens fed 20% snail meal. A control diet, however, was not improved by adding DL-methionine beyond .1%. A significant improvement in growth was obtained from adding 5 or 10% of either fish meal or snail meal to a corn-soybean meal diet. This suggested the presence of unidentified growth factors in snail meal similar to those claimed for fish meal.