Performance, carcass analysis and sensory evaluation of cooked meat of snailets of African giant land snail (Archachatina marginata) fed pawpaw leaves, whole lettuce, lettuce waste and cabbage waste as sole feed ingredient

There is paucity of information on quality feedstuffs for snail production in Nigeria. One hundred and eighty snailets (Archachatina marginata) of an average weight of 3.55±1.10 g were randomly distributed into four dietary treatments of pawpaw leaves (PL), whole lettuce (WL), lettuce wastes (LW) and cabbage wastes (CW). Each treatment consisted of 3 replicates of 15 snailets per replicate in a completely randomized design. The diets were fed ad libitum for 20 weeks. The study investigated the performance, carcass analysis and sensory evaluation of cooked meat of the snailets fed the experimental diets. The body weight gain, feed intake, dressing percentage, shell length and shell thickness gain of snailets on WL, LW and CW were similar, higher and significantly different (P < 0.05) from those of snailets fed PL. The result of the sensory evaluation revealed that the dietary treatments had no significant effect (P > 0.05) on the colour, taste, flavour, texture and overall acceptability of the snail meat. On the whole, the study established that snailets of A. marginata could utilize lettuce waste as well as cabbage as sole feed ingredient to increase animal protein supply in Nigeria.