Vol. 3, Issue 6, Part D (2017)

Abstract
A feeding trial was set to investigate the potential of selected plant and animal-offal based ingredients to reduce the fishmeal content in grow out diets formulated for mud crab fattening. Ten isonitrogenous feeds, five for each of animal protein (AP) and plant protein (PP) based diets were prepared while tilAPia was used as control. Feeding trial was conducted for 120 days and feeds were APPlied at the rate of 5% body weight. Significantly highest (p<0.05) net benefit was gained with AP based feed of AP₂ followed by AP₃ and AP₁ at Tk. 63.14, 56.06 and 52.28 respectively. Survival rate of female was much higher in the control (100%), compared to AP (96.30%) and PP (83.1%) based feeds. The body protein contents of crabs under feeding trial were higher than wild crabs although differences were insignificant. The result might be useful to reduce the feed cost and dependency on trash fish in fattening process.