Economics of production of broiler chickens fed maggot meal as replacement for fish meal

Abstract

The economics of production of broiler chickens considered for 0-35 days, 35-56 days, and 0-56 days was compared for fishmeal (FM) and maggot meal (MM) diets. The maggot meal diet had a replacement of the fish meal at 75%> on protein basis. Replacing FM at 75% with MM resulted in reduced cost of feed as well as cost /kilogramme weight gain of broiler chicken at starter, finisher and the overall production period. Consequently, net returns was raised by 15.79%, 12.28% and 13.63% respectively at the starter, finisher and during the overall production period. The increase in net returns are encouraging as the least cost diet had no negative effect on the performance of the birds. Therefore the profit-maximising objective of commercial broiler enterprises is achieveably by MM utilization in broiler feed as replacement for FM under this condition of reduced cost of production.

Keywords: Economics of production, maggot meal, fishmeal, net returns