The primary objective of this study was to extract collagen from underutilized fish species owing to its cost effective nature and also its ability to address the demand of type I collagen arising from food and pharmaceutical industries. Acid and pepsin soluble collagen (ppASC and ppPSC) were extracted from the skin of sucker catfish (Pterygoplichthys pardalis) with a yield of 19.6 and 23.8% on wet weight basis respectively. The same were characterized and confirmed as type I collagen by SDS-PAGE, FTIR and UV-Vis spectroscopy, amino acid analysis, and Zeta potential. Taking into consideration the application of collagen in food industry, a food product was developed by incorporating with fresh cheese. This fortification was found to be acceptable and had not altered the taste, odor and other sensory properties of the product.

Present study was conducted to evaluate different strategies for feed formulation in commercial broiler production. A total of 16 male newly hatched broiler chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) were fed with different formulated diets in 3 feeding phases, starter (1-11 d), grower (12-22 d) and finisher (23-33 d). Four strategies of feed formulation (F1, F2, F3 and F4) were compared; where in F1 group was fed with traditional diet, F2 and F3 were fed with traditional diet after supplementation with 10% & 20 % paneer respectively. The last group (F4) was fed with traditional diet supplemented with 10% collagen and is incorporated into paneer to provide extra protein. The collagen used in the study was analyzed and characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy, SDS-PAGE and FTIR which was confirmed type-I collagen. All the experimental birds had shown significantly high body weight (BW) for F4 birds compared with other groups. Feed conversion ratio was significantly lower for F3 birds compared to the birds in other groups. No differences were detected for feed intake and mortality. At 33 d, F4 birds (2.227) were significantly heavier than other groups and a remarkable difference was noticed in the decreasing order F3>F2>F1 (2.004 kg, 1.998 kg and 1.749 kg respectively). Notable differences were detected for carcass yield (%), breast yield (%) and breast-to-carcass ratio at 33 d. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that the enhancement in growth rate of birds was observed by providing them with collagen along with the regular diet.