ABSTRACT
This study was undertaken to assess the potential for including mucuna meal as a partial replacement for locally available fish meal in diets for Oreochromis niloticus (L.). Seven groups o± fish were fed prescribe diets at 4% body weight once a day for 56 days. The water temperature and p remained essentially the same during the experiment at 29°C and 6.8 respectively. Fish meal was the only source of supplemental protein in the control rati(i.e diet 1). Diets 2, 3 and 4 had part of the fishmeal replaced with 10%, 20% and 30% raw mucuna beans respectively while diets 5, 6 and 7 had. part of the fishnieal replaced with 10$, 20% and 30$ processed mucuna respectively. After 56 days of feeding with the experimental diets, it was found that the percentage weight gain and specific growth rate of the fish fed the control diet and the test (mucuna) diets were not statistically different, (p>O.05). owever it was foirn that the percentage weight gain and specific growth rate of the fish fed raw mucuna was inversely related to the dietary levels, while on the other hand, weight gain nd specific growth rate of the fish fed processed muouna was directly related to the dietary
levels. Fish fed with diet 2 (i.e 10$ raw mucuna) performed better than others fed diets with mucuna and also surprisingly
better than those fed with the control diet. The results suggest that there is potential for including mucuna in diets for Q. nioticus0 The poorer performance of Q. nioticus fed with treated mucuna may indicate deficiencies of one or more essential amino acids and minerals that possibly can be corrected through appropriate dietary supplementation.
