Performance, nutrient digestibility, carcass analysis and organoleptic assessment of snailets of African giant land snail (Archachatina marginata) fed diets containing graded levels of dried lettuce

There is paucity of information on quality and cheap feedstuffs for snail production in the Tropics. The performance, nutrient digestibility, carcass analysis and organoleptic qualities of snailets of Archachatina marginata fed diets containing graded levels of dried lettuce (DL) were assessed in a 20 week trial. 180 snailets with average weight of 9.18 ± 2.67 g were allotted to 4 diets of 45 snailets per treatment and each treatment replicated thrice with 15 snails per replicate. Snailets were randomly distributed into 4 dietary treatments consisting of 0% DL(T1), 25%DL(T2), 50%DL(T3) and 100%DL(T4) with DL replacing maize in a completely randomized design. Water and feed were presented ad libitum while feed intake and weight gain were measured on daily and weekly basis respectively. Shell length and width were measured with vernier caliper while shell thickness was measured with a micrometer screw gauge on weekly basis. The body weight gain, feed per gain and nutrient digestibility of snailets on T1, T2 and T3 were similar, higher and significantly different (P < 0.05) from those of snailets on T4. The dressing percentages in all the treatments were similar. The organoleptic assessment revealed that the dietary treatments had no significant effect (P > 0.05) on the color, taste, flavor, texture and overall acceptability of the snail meat. Snailets on diet T3 were the best in terms of economy of production by having a feed cost savings of 9.16% when compared with the control diet with no dried lettuce. In conclusion, it can be stated that diet T3 containing 50% DL replacement for maize was the best in terms of performance, nutrient digestibility and economy of production amongst the tested diets.