Om. Yousif et al., EVALUATION OF DATES AND DATE PITS AS DIETARY INGREDIENTS IN TILAPIA (OREOCHROMIS-AUREUS) DIETS DIFFERING IN PROTEIN-SOURCES, Bioresource technology, 57(1), 1996, pp. 81-85
Citations number
31
Categorie Soggetti
Energy & Fuels","Biothechnology & Applied Migrobiology",Agriculture
Seven isonitrogenous (40% crude protein) and isocaloric (18.6 kJ/g gro
ss energy) diets were formulated to investigate the utilisation of dat
es and date pits as carbohydrate sources for tilapia fry (Oreochromis
aureus) and to evaluate the complete substitution of fish meal by poul
try byproduct and blood meals. The growth and feed utilisation efficie
ncy of fish fed on diets in which poultry byproduct meal was the only
animal protein source were higher (P<0.05) than with the other two pro
tein sources. Since these results disagree with those of previous stud
ies with other fish species, it was assumed that the low performances
of fish on fish-meal and blood-meal diets were due to inadequate proce
ssing of the raw products. The inclusion of the dates and date pits di
d not influence the growth of the fish. A trend of increasing body-pro
tein content and decreasing fat was observed in fish fed diets supplem
ented with date-pits meal. An estrogenic action of date pits was hypot
hesised as the direct cause of this phenomenon. Copyright (C) 1996 Els
evier Science Ltd.