The Effect of Hake Meal in Broiler Rations

Abstract

The estimated standing stock of adult pacific hake (Merluccius productus) off the Pacific Coast is 4 to 8 billion pounds (Ahlstrom, 1968) with a maximum sustainable yield of 230 to 540 million pounds (Nelson, 1968). Dyer et al. (1966) reported that pacific hake can be processed successfully into fish meal which compared favorably with other fish meals in 21-day chick feeding trials.In view of this potential source of protein, experiments comparing varying amounts of hake and herring meal in broiler rations have been conducted.The trials consisted of either triplicate or quadruplicate lots of 24 day-old cross-bred broilers equalized for sex. Care and management of these floor-reared broilers have previously been described (Rose and Arscott, 1962).The composition of the rations is shown in Table 1 and the outline of the experiments in Table 2. In all experiments hake3 and herring4 meal replaced an equivalent amount of soybean meal…