Mitko Lalev1, Dimo Penkov2, Pavlina Hristakieva1, Magdalena Oblakova1, Nadia Mincheva1 and Ivelina Ivanova1
1 Agricultural Academy, Agricultural Institute, 6000 Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
2 Agricultural University, 4000 Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Lalev, M., Penkov, D., Hristakieva, P., Oblakova, M., Mincheva, N. & Ivanova, I. (2023). Influence of the inclusion of insect meals on the net utilization of energy and protein in broiler chickens. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 29 (3), 507–513
The aim of the present research was to compare the net utilization of the energy and the protein in the chain “fodder – breast+tight muscles”, when replacing part of soybean meal with 10% insect meals from defatted Black soldier fly larvae (BSFd) and silkworms (SW) in the fattening of broiler chickens. The experiment was conducted with 180 Ross day-old male broiler chickens, in 3 groups, with 3 replicates (20 birds/replicate), throughout 49 days. The groups were: control (C), where the soybean meal was the main protein source in all the diets; BSFd – fed 10% defatted larvae meal instead of part of soybean meal; SW – fed 10% silkworm pupae meal instead of part of soybean meal. The diets were isoprotein and isoenergetic in all the 3 phases of fattening. Two indexes were used: Clarc of energy distribution (CED) = Accumulated gross energy in lean breast+thigt meat/consumed metabolizable energy and Clarc of protein transformation (CPT) = Accumulated crude protein in lean breast+thigt meat/consumed crude protein.
The following results were obtained: CED: C group – 0.1774 (17.74%); BSFd group – 0.1844 (18.44%); SW group – 0.1989 (19.89%). CPT: C group – 0.4394 (43.94%); BSFd group – 0.4608 (46.08%); SW group – 0.4723 (47.23%). The described replacement of fodder components has a positive effect on the net utilization both of energy and protein.