Fishmeal Substitution With Feather Meal in the Diet of African Catfish ( <i>Clarias gariepinus</i> ): Effects on Growth Performance, Survival, and Feed Floatability

ABSTRACT Fish production represents an important sector, and limited access to feed is a major challenge faced by fish farmers. A potential solution is for farmers to produce their own feeds using cheaper and locally available ingredients. In order to identify alternative substitutes for conventional protein sources used in fish feed, this study was performed to evaluate the effect of incorporating hydrolysed feather meal as a partial substitute for fish meal on the production performance of Clarias gariepinus . Three hundred and thirty‐six juvenile catfish (90.85 ± 12.5 g) were assigned to four dietary treatments containing hydrolysed feather meal at rates of 0% (T0), 25% (T1), 50% (T2) and 75% (T3) as a substitution for fish meal. The results indicated that feed flotation time increased significantly ( p &lt; 0.05) as the level of incorporation of hydrolysed feather meal in the diet increased. However, fish growth performance was not significantly ( p &gt; 0.05) affected by the treatments. The feed cost of producing 1 kg of fish, which was $2.434, $2.122, $1.906 and $1.591 for treatments T0, T1, T2 and T3 respectively, decreased significantly ( p &lt; 0.05) with increasing levels of incorporation of hydrolysed feather meal in the diet. Based on these findings, hydrolysed feather meal could be used as a partial replacement for fish meal in the diet of C. gariepinus .