Effect of dietary supplementation of giant African snail juveniles (Achatina fulica Ferussac) to local chicken breeds under deep litter system

Abstract

The experiment was carried out at the Poultry Farm, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad to know the effect of supplementation of juveniles of giant African snails (GAS) with normal feed of poultry and their combination in the diets of local chicken breeds and also evaluated in terms of feed intake, growth performance and egg laying capacity of the chickens. The study revealed that, significantly maximum body weight gain of chicken (825.98 g) and feed consumption (100%) were recorded in poultry feed alone treatment (60 g/bird/day) followed by poultry feed (30 g/bird/day) + snail (20/bird/day) . With respect to egg laying capacity of the chickens, the poultry feed alone treatment recorded significantly higher eggs (203) followed by poultry feed + snail (91 eggs) and least weight gain and eggs were recorded in snail alone treatment (56 eggs).