Effects and Cost-Benefit of Low and High Protein Levels in Snail Diets with Constant Levels of Energy and Calcium

Snails are invertebrates with soft segmented shells. Snail farming is still at the infant stage compared to other farming enterprises because of limited information on the nutrient requirement of the animal. Therefore, a 12-week study was conducted to determine the effect of snails’ diets containing low and high Crude protein (CP) levels with constant level of energy and calcium on the growth performance of African giant land snail Archachatina marginata. In a completely randomized design, a total of 120 snails of the same weight and breed were randomly allotted to five (5) different dietary treatments: PR1 (20% CP), PR2 (22% CP), PR3 (24% CP), PR4 (26% CP) and PR5 (28% CP) with constant energy (2.6 Mcal/kg Metabolizable Energy) and calcium level. The snails were placed in 12 experimental compartments each measuring 0.5x 0.5m2. Results revealed that the body weight gain, feed intake, cost of feed per kg weight gain and dressing percentage yield was significantly (p < 0.05) higher at the 28% CP. Furthermore, results showed significant (P< 0.05) interactions between protein across the treatments performance indices, shell length, shell width, feed cost per kg weight gain and dressing percentage yield. Feed intake decreased significantly (p < 0.05) at 20% CP level while the FCR values decreased (p < 0.05) at 28% CP level. Shell length, width and thickness was enhanced (p < 0.05) at 20% CP level. Also, the Feed cost per kg weight gain was observed to be significantly (p < 0.05) reduced at the 24% CP. The results obtained in the present study showed that the dietary protein of 24% CP, with constant energy of 2.6Mcal/kg ME is optimally suitable for the growth of African giant land snails Archachatina marginata at reduced cost.