Chicken by-product meal as a replacement to fish meal in juvenile abalone (Haliotis discus hannai Ino 1952) feed

This study aims to assess the effect of replacing anchovy meal with chicken by-product meal (CBM) in juvenile abalone (Haliotis discus hannai) feed. Five diets were formulated to contain 0 (CBM0), 25 (CBM25), 50 (CBM 50), 75 (CBM75), and 100% (CBM100) CBM in replacement to 24% fish meal (FM). Dried Saccharina japonica, which is the natural food for this species of abalone was also prepared. Each diet was fed to triplicate groups of abalone. 1260 abalone assigned into eighteen cages were fed for 16 weeks. After the 16-week feeding trial, 30 abalones from each cage were exposed to air for 24 h, and survival was monitored for 7 days. Results showed that weight gain and specific growth rate of abalone fed the CBM0 (185.4 +/- 12.83% and 0.93 +/- 0.040%/day, respectively) diet were significantly (p < 0.04 for both) higher than those of abalone fed the CBM100 (139.0 +/- 6.36% and 0.78 +/- 0.024%/day, respectively) diet. Shell length and width of abalone fed the CBM0 diet were significantly (p < 0.003 and p < 0.02, respectively) longer and wider than those of abalone fed the CBM75 and CBM100 diets. Survival of abalone during the 7-day postobservation period after the 24-h air exposure exhibited no remarkable (p > 0.1 for Log Rank and Wilcoxon tests) difference among all formulated diets according to the analysis of the Kaplan-Meier survival curve. In conclusion, CBM can replace FMup to 50% in an abalone diet without compromising growth performance and survival.