Performance of two snail species – Archachatina marginata (S) and Achatina achatina (I) reared under the same management practices.

Abstract

The performance and carcass analysis of two popular snail species - Archatina marginata (S) and Achatina achatina (L) commonly reared in West Africa were evaluated from day old to six (6) months of age under the same housing and dietary conditions in a complete randomized design with two (2) treatments, replicated thrice with sixty (60) snails per treatment. The study revealed that at day old treatment 1 (T1) had the higher live weight of 4.03g, while treatment 2 (T2) had 0.31g which showed a statistical significant difference at P<0.05. The shell length and shell width of the hatchlings also showed statistical significant difference (P<0.05) between the two treatments. The mean feed intake (g/day) for T1 was 2.89 and 1.96 for T2. Higher mortality (8.33%) was recorded in T2. T2 was also found to be the better converter of feed to edible meat with feed conversion ratio of 7.26 to 72.3 recorded in T1. The higher dressing out percentage (40.14) was recorded in T1. The result showed that snails generally have slow growth. T1 was found to grow faster than T2 hence it is recommended to the populace because it has higher potential to meet animal protein supply than T2. Research on improvement and nutrition of snails should therefore be encouraged.