Apparent Digestibility Coefficients and Amino Acid Availability of Cricket Meal, Gryllus bimaculatus, and Fishmeal in African Catfish, Clarias gariepinus, Diet

A study was conducted on African catfish, Clarias gariepinus, to examine the apparent digestibility coefficient (ADC) of protein, dry matter, lipid, and energy, and the apparent availability coefficient (AAC) of essential amino acid (EAA) for a cricket meal (CM) diet, Gryllus bimaculatus, and fishmeal (FM). Both diets consisted of 30% isonitrogenous levels with a 70:30 ratio of basal diet to test ingredient. Chromic oxide (0.5%) was added to the diet as an inert marker. The ADCs of crude protein (CP) in CM (81.21%), lipid (89.82%), gross energy (64.42%), and dry matter (73.97%) was significantly higher (P < 0.05) than the value of CP (78.22%), lipid (82.03%), gross energy (56.52%), and dry matter (62.26%) in FM. All EAAs were present in both diets. The AACs for both diets ranged from 0.906 to 0.961 and 0.812 to 0.938 for the CM and FM diets, respectively. The growth performance of fish fed with CM exhibited significantly higher (P < 0.05) weight gain, feed conversion ratio, and protein efficiency ratio compared with FM. Overall, the results suggest that CM could be included in the African catfish diet without affecting their nutrient and amino acid digestibility as well as growth performance.