Apparent digestibility of nutrients, energy, essential amino acids and fatty acids of juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) diets containing whole-cell or cell-ruptured Chlorella vulgaris meals at five dietary inclusion levels.

1. This paper reports 4 experiments with groups of 10 to 20 growing bantams in multi-unit brooders, which investigated effects of certain environmental and dietary factors on development of feather pecking damage to 6 weeks of age. Damage was assessed according to a subjective scoring system. 2. A test of food form (pellets, mash, mash diluted with 100 g/kg powdered cellulose) confirmed that pecking damage tends to be greater with pellets than with mash but there was no significant difference between the low damage scores associated with undiluted and diluted mash treatments. 3. A test of group size (10, 20 birds) and stocking density (744, 372, 186 cm2/bird) showed that variation in pecking damage was associated with group size x density interactions. 4. A test of dietary supplementation with L-tryptophan (0, 10, 20 g/kg) showed suppression of pecking damage with the higher (20 g/kg) dose, compared with the control (0 g/kg) treatment. 5. A test of dietary protein source (plant, mainly animal, mainly semipurified) showed no difference in pecking damage scores between treatments.

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Malpura and Kheri ewes (76) in their late gestation, weighing 34.40±0.95 kg were randomly selected and divided into 4 groups of 19 each (G1, G2, G3 and G4). Ewes in all the groups were grazed on natural rangeland from 07.00 h to 18.00 h. Ewes in G1were maintained on sole grazing while ewes in G2, G3 and G4, in addition to grazing received concentrate mixture at the rate of 1% of their body weight during late gestation, early lactation and entire last quarter of pregnancy to early quarter of lactation, respectively. The herbage yield of the community rangeland was 0.82 metric ton dry matter/hectare. The diet consisted of (%) Guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba) bhusa, (59.2), Babool pods and leaves (17.2), Bajra (Pennisetum typhoides) stubbles (8.8), Doob (5.3), Aak (4.2) and others (5.3). The nutrient intake and its digestibility were higher (p<0.01) in G2, G3 and G4 as compared to G1 because of concentrate supplementation. The intakes of DM (g/kg W 0.75 ), DCP (g/kg W 0.75 ) and ME (MJ/kg W 0.

This study determined the digestibility of protein in partially dehulled sunflower meal (SFM) and then, as the main goal, the nutritive value of high‐temperature extruded (≤149°C) partially dehulled SFM (SFMEX) for post‐smolt Atlantic salmon Salmo salar in sea water. The digestibility study was conducted using the settling column approach (‘Guelph system’) for faeces collection as described by Hajen, Higgs, Beames and Dosanjh. In the nutritive value study, triplicate groups of 50 salmon (mean weight ∼116 g) in 4000‐L outdoor fibreglass tanks supplied with 25–40 L min−1, filtered, oxygenated (dissolved oxygen, 7.0–8.5 mg L−1), 11–12°C sea water (salinity, 29–31 g L−1), were fed twice daily to satiation one of five steam‐pelleted dry diets that contained 422 g of digestible protein (DP) kg−1 and ∼16.4 MJ of digestible energy (DE) kg−1 on a dry weight basis for 84 days. Low‐temperature‐dried anchovy meal (LT‐AM) comprised 68.2% of the basal diet protein whereas in four test diets, SFMEX progressively replaced up to 33.0% of the DP provided by LT‐AM in the basal diet (SFMEX≤271 g kg−1 of dry matter). Sunflower meal had 87.9% DP. Diet treatment did not significantly affect specific growth rate (1.39–1.45% day−1), feed efficiency (1.19–1.26), percentage of dietary protein retained (45.8–47.5), gross energy utilization (46.5–49.4%), per cent survival (96.0–99.3) or terminal whole body and muscle proximate compositions. We conclude that SFMEX can comprise ≥271 g kg−1 of the dry diet or ≥22.7% of the digestible dietary protein of post‐smolt Atlantic salmon in seawater without any adverse effects on their performance.