Effects of chitin and chitosan from cricket and shrimp on growth and carcass performance of broiler chickens

Abstract

Majority of the studies on the effect of chitin and chitosan on growth and carcass characteristics of broiler chickens has concentrated more on shrimp chitin and shrimp chitosan, and often with contradictory results. Therefore, the objective of this present study is to evaluate and compare the effect of dietary chitin and chitosan from cricket and shrimp on growth performance, carcass, and organ characteristics of broiler chickens. One hundred fifty-day-old male Cobb500 broiler chicks of similar average weight were randomly allotted into one of the five dietary treatments with three replicates. Treatment 1 (T1) chicks were fed basal diet only (control), treatment 2 and 3 (T2 and T3) chicks were given basal diet with 0.5 g/kg diet of cricket chitin and cricket chitosan, respectively, while treatment 4 and 5 (T4 and T5) chicks were served basal diet with 0.5 g/kg diet of shrimp chitin and shrimp chitosan respectively. No significant variation occurred between cricket chitin and shrimp chitin, although data on growth performance were higher in cricket chitin, but growth performance varied significantly between cricket chitosan and shrimp chitosan. This study revealed that cricket chitin at 0.5 g/ kg significantly improved growth performance, carcass quality, and organ characteristics of broilers more than chitosan. Birds fed basal diet alone, although gained more weight, also accumulated more fat having the poorest feed conversion ratio (FCR) and the highest mortality. However, carcass of birds fed cricket chitin was the leanest and thus economically beneficial as they consumed the least amount of feed with the best FCR.

Effects of dietary supplementation of chitosan on carcass composition and meat quality in growing Huoyan geese

“…(2008) reported that dietary supplementation of CS decreased the carcass fat and increased crude protein and tenderness, but no differences were observed in carcass traits. Lokman et al. (2019) also observed that CS improved carcass quality and depressed fat deposition.…”

“…Numerous studies demonstrated that dietary supplementation of CS could improve slaughter performance and carcass composition of animals ( Zhou et al., 2009 , Miao et al., 2018 , Lokman et al., 2019 ). In parallel, this study with supplementation of 200 mg/kg CS significantly decreased abdominal fat percentage of growing Huoyan geese, which suggested that CS has a potent effect in improving fat deposition and meat traits.…”

Progress in Modern Marine Biomaterials Research

“…Importantly, crustacean shells combined with commercial chitin can be used as biosorbents to remove heavy metals from surface runoff that solves two environmental problems: the use of seafood wastes and water resources management [51]. Moreover, seafood wastes can be employed in agriculture: the use of shrimp chitin as feed additives showed a positive effect on growth and carcass characteristics of broiler chickens [52]. Another application of crustacean shells was shown in a recent research of Las Heras et al [53] who described the generation of chitin-containing sponge like scaffolds, which were biocompatible with human mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSCs), thus representing a high potential for biomedical technologies, in particular, for tissue engineering.…”

Edible crickets, but which species?

“…• Poultry (Lokman et al, 2019): A. domesticus (Kovitvadhi et al, 2019;Nakagaki et al, 1987), G. testaceus 1 (Kovitvadhi et al, 2019;Miech et al, 2016) and G. bimaculatus (Kovitvadhi et al, 2019).…”

“…However, we will restrict ourselves here to the family Gryllidae which includes more than 550 species in the world (Rentz and Su, 2003). This article is also meant to motivate authors to be more precise about which cricket species they are referring to, because there are several occasions where it is not mentioned (Lokman et al, 2019); this may be because the authors consider the house cricket the default or did not think it relevant.…”