Performance of Growing and Laying Chickens Fed Diets Containing Earthworms (<i>Eisenia foetida</i>)

Utilisation of Earthworm Meal in Partial Replacement of Soybean and Fish Meals in Diets of Broilers

“…With similar feed intake in all the groups those fed 10 or 15% WM exhibited better feed efficiency This also shows that the broilers could adapt well t o WM feeding. The results were consistent with the findings of Harwood (1976) and Mekada et al (1979).…”

“…Quite some work was done during late seventies and early eighties on the use of earthworm meal (WM) as protein source for animals and poultry (Sabine, 1979;Stafford et al, 1984). These studies have proved that WM could be used to replace soybean and fish meals partially as a protein source.…”

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“…Mekada et al, 4 reported that when older chickens were fed with earthworms, egg production was maintained. Recently Paoletti et al, 7 also reported high contents of arachidonic acid and linoleic acid in the earthworms consumed by the native people of Alto Orinoco of Venezuela.…”

“…Thereafter, there have been several studies on nutrient analysis of earthworm tissues [2][3][4][5][6][7] . The results of these studies clearly suggest that the overall composition of earthworm tissue does not differ greatly from that of many invertebrate and vertebrate.…”

- Human Pathogen Reduction during Vermicomposting

“…Since the work by McInroy (1971), there have been numerous analyses of the constituents of the tissues of different species of earthworms (Schulz and Graff 1977;Sabine 1978;Yoshida and Hoshii 1978;Mekada et al 1979;Taboga 1980;Graff 1982;Edwards 1985aEdwards , 1985bEdwards and Niederer 1988). The overall composition of earthworm tissues does not differ greatly from that of many vertebrate tissues (Table 20.1).…”