EVALUATION OF HOUSEFLY Musca domestica MAGGOT MEAL AS PROTEIN SOURCE IN NILE TILAPIA Oreochromis niloticus DIETS  

Nazael A. Madalla* , Tausi Ally, & Sebastian W. Chenyambuga
 
Department of Animal Science & Production
 Sokoine University of Agriculture
P. O. Box 3004, Morogoro, Tanzania.
nmadalla@suanet.ac.tz

Despite phenomenal growth of aquaculture in the world, such growth has growth has remained elusive Tanzania. It has remained mostly rural taking place in small semi-intensive freshwater ponds mostly stocked with Nile tilapia. Lack of quality and affordable fish feeds is one of the limiting factors as fishmeal and oil seedcakes are scarce and unaffordable. Housefly maggots are locally available, palatable and relatively more affordable thus a potential protein source. Moreover, they have short life cycle and high fecundity rate within a short period time. The current study evaluated suitability of housefly maggot meal (HFM) as protein sources in the Nile tilapia diets. The maggots were produced using chicken manure as substrate. Four test diets were formulated to contain graded levels of HFM (25, 30, 35 & 40%) which were compared against a non-HFM control diet (HFM0) as shown in Table 1. All diets were isonitrogenous with 30% crude protein.

The diets were fed to juveniles with an average weight of 2.6g in a growth trial which lasted for eight weeks. Growth, feed utilization and cost effectiveness was best in fish fed diet HFM35 (Table 2).

Therefore HFM can be included at 35% in Nile tilapia diets containing 5% fish meal and cotton seedcake or any similar plant protein without compromising biological and economical performance.