Xue Min, Wu Xiufeng, Sheng Hongjiang, Hu Liang, Guo Liya, Zheng Yinhua
National Aquafeed Safety Evaluation Station, FRI, CAAS
Aquaculture is the fastest-growing agricultural sector globally, which accounts for almost 50% of the fish consumed in the world.
Marine fishmeal has long been considered the most important protein ingredient used in aquaculture diets due not only to its high quality and quantity of essential amino acids, but also to the presence of essential n-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids and minerals, and its high palatability.
However, the high price and resources deficiency of fishmeal enhanced the alternative protein research and utilization in aquafeed. Replacement of fishmeal with less expensive protein sources would be beneficial in reducing feed costs. Rendered terrestrial animal protein ingredients, such as poultry by-product meal (PBM), meat and bone meal (MBM), blood meal (BM) and hydrolysed feather meal (HFM) are often good sources of indispensable amino acids. The quality of these meals depends on both the quality of raw ingredients and the type of processing, and have been used successfully in feeds for various fish species, such as Chinook salmon (Fowler, 1991), rainbow trout (Bureau, et al., 2000), red drum (Kureshy, et al., 2000), Australian silver perch (Allan, et al., 2000) and hybrid tilapia (Xue, et al., 2003).
The results on Japanese seabass and Siberian sturgeon from several studies in our lab showed that the quality and quantity in diets of the terrestrial animal meals significantly affected the growth performance and health of the fish.
Ideal protein concept base on digestible amino acids profile should be considered in alternative protein research.
Key words :
Aquafeed; Fishmeal; Terrestrial animal protein; Nutrition; Toxicity.