Hew Voon Fong and C. Devendra

Abstract

Two trials involving 60 cross-bred pigs were conducted to study the effects of different local fishmeal levels on performance and carcass charactcristics of growing-finishing pigs. The objectivc was to determine the optimal economic level of fishmeal inclusion. Increasing the fishmeal from 0 (all-vegetable based control) to 5, 10, l5 and 20% in the diet increased the daily liveweight gain of the pigs, but further increases of fishmeal levels 25 and 27.15%, depressed growth rate. Feed intake followed the same trend with intake increasing from 0 to 20% fishmeal, but decreasing with levels higher than 20%.The number of days taken for the pigs to reach slaughter weight was least for levels at l0 to 20% fishmeal. However, no differences in carcass characteristics was observed for all pigs. An attempt to identify the optimal level of local fishmeal inclusion within the range of 10 to 20% gave no differences in overall performance. However, the 18% level of fishmeal appears to be optimal as it gave the best growth rate as well as carcass characteristics. Dfferences in the quality of imported and local fishmeal are also stressed. The use of local fishmeal at levels of l0% to 20% is recommended because local fishmeal is cheaper than the imported one.

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