Growth Performance of African Giant Land Snails (Archachatinamarginata) to Graded Levels of Poultry Droppings as a Replacement for Palm Kernel Cake in the Diet

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine theGrowth Performance of African Giant Land Snails (Archachatinamarginata) to Graded Levels of Poultry Droppings as a Replacement for Palm Kernel Cake in the Diet. The study determined increase in length, circumference and weight gain of snails. The study was carried out in Benin City, Edo State, South-South Nigeria. A true experimental research design was used for the study. Population for the study was 300 young snails which were bought from Ugbogui Market in Benin City near Okada Town while the sample size of 90 snails was used for the study. The snails were certified by experts before the sample size of 90 was selected. Three research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. Data was collected on increase in length and circumference of experimental snails and weight gain of the experimental snails. Data on length, circumference and weight gain were collected weekly during the experiment. The length and circumference of the experimental snails were measured using measuring tape while the weight gain was measured using a digital weighing balance. Mean and Standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze and test the null hypotheses. The findings revealed that snails in treatment with diets 2 and 3 containing 25% and 50% poultry droppings showed the highest increase in circumference and length/weight gain respectively among others. The study recommended that poultry droppings should be fed to snails at 25% and 50% levels of replacement for palm kernel cake in the diet among others.