Complete replacement of dietary fish meal by duckweed and soybean meal on the performance of broilers

An experimant was conducted to investigate the effects of equiprotein replacement of dietary fish meal (FM) with duckweed (DW) and soybean meal (SBM) on the performance of broilers. A total of 112 seven-day-old as hatched broilers were fed on 4 different iso-energetic (2,818 kcal/kg) and iso-nitrogeneous (20.2% CP) diets up to 56 days of age. Diet A was control with 12% FM. In diets B (3% DW + 13.5% SBM), C (6% DW + 11.5% SBM) and D (9% DW + 10% SBM). All FM protein of control diet was replaced by DW and SBM. The replacement of dietary FM by DW and SBM depressed feed intake, live weight gain and feed conversion efficiency and increased production cost and thus affected profitability. All those growth parameters had a linear declining trend as the proportion of DW in the diet was increased. It may be concluded that complete replacement of dietary FM by DW and SBM should not be recommended for raising broilers.