13 - Filamentous fungi as animal and fish feed ingredients

Abstract

Filamentous fungi is a promising feed sources that can be added in the animal feed as a replacement for common protein sources such as fishmeal. Valuable filamentous fungal biomass contains high concentrations of protein which is composed of functional amino acids. Inclusion of different sort of amino acids, fatty acids, immunostimulants, antioxidants, pigments, etc., makes it a high-potent alternative for application in animal feed supplementation. Considering the issues arise from scarcity of suitable protein-source feed stuff, e.g., fishmeal, in animal farming including the aquaculture industry, increasing prices of these components and environmental concerns, the animal farmers as well as feed production industry is forced to provide alternative protein-rich ingredient to be replace with conventional fishmeal. In this book chapter, different nutritional aspects of filamentous fungi biomass as a novel alternative nutrient source in animal feed were thoroughly reviewed.