Rendered meat and bone meals as ingredients of diets for shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei (Boone, 1931)

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The nutritional quality of three sources of rendered meat and bone meals (MBM) was evaluated as feed ingredients in diets for juvenile Litopenaeus vannamei. Two trials were conducted in this work: an in vivo apparent digestibility trial and a growth trial. The apparent digestibility coefficients for dry matter, crude protein and amino acids of diets containing fixed percentages of each protein source were determined using the marker (0.5% chromic oxide) method. A separate feeding trial was conducted to ascertain the maximum level of replacement of high-quality Norwegian fish meal in diets for this species. Nine dry diets were formulated to contain each protein source at 25%, 50% and 75% levels of replacement of fish meal. A 10th diet, the control, contained no meat and bone meal. Fish oil was adjusted to maintain equal lipid levels among the diets. The growth and survival of shrimp fed each diet for 8 weeks were determined. Responses of shrimp to dietary MBMs differed for both the digestibility and the growth trials. The apparent digestibility coefficients of dry matter, protein and amino acids were lower relative to the fish meal for the diets containing the three MBMs, and this difference was statistically significant for two of them. The growth trial, however, revealed that MBM effectively replaced between 25% and 75% of fish meal, depending on which MBM was used. A general decrease in growth above 25% replacement was observed for all MBM sources. The relative rankings of the three MBMs were different based on digestibility and growth performance data, indicating that digestibility itself is insufficient to explain the reduction in growth response relative to dietary fish meal.