A. Gouveia et Sj. Davies, Inclusion of an extruded dehulled pea seed meal in diets for juvenile European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), AQUACULTURE, 182(1-2), 2000, pp. 183-193
A feeding trial and subsequent digestibility trial were performed on juveni
le European sea bass. The diet formulation allowed for the incorporation of
up to 30% of a highly processed commercial pea seed meal as a replacement
for both fish meal and the non-protein energy component of the diet (mainly
starch). After 11 weeks, it was observed that a positive but non-significa
nt trend existed for both growth and feed utilization with increasing incor
poration of pea seed meal in the diets. There were, however, other nutritio
nal parameters such as protein efficiency ratio (PER) and nitrogen depositi
on that increased according to graded levels of pea seed meal indicating th
at a high inclusion of this ingredient was beneficial to protein assimilati
on. Digestibility coefficients for protein, lipid and carbohydrates were no
t appreciably affected by the inclusion of this ingredient which was also r
eflected with respect to the overall carcass composition of sea bass at the
end of the study. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.