Eco-fish meal as an alternative to fish meal in diets for lambs

The effect of Eco-fish meal, as an alternative to fish meal, on the production performance of the lambs of the Mis population in the intensive fattening, was investigated. The experiment was carried out on 40 lambs, the average age of 30 days, divided in 2 groups. In addition to mother’s milk, the lambs were given a concentrated mixture and a lucerne hay, at will. Isoprotein forage mixtures (16% of total proteins) differed in terms of the protein component. The protein source for treatment I had fish meal, while the animals on treatment II consumed EcoFish, a herbal substitute for fish meal, which consisted of domestic foods of known origin such as genetically unmodified and thermally treated meal of decorticated soybean grains, soybean protein isolates, gluten, livestock yeast with the addition of minerals, amino acids, vitamins, enzymes and other additives. Statistical processing of the obtained data was done using the SPSS STATISTICA, Version 20. On treatments I and II, the average daily lamb gain was 320 and 283 g, respectively, without statistical significance. The consumption of dry matter and proteins in analogue treatments was 0.819 and 0.823 kg, and 152.62 and 157.04 g, respectively. The dry matter consumption per kilogram of gain (kg/kg of gain) was 2.56 and 2.91; of energy (MJ NEM/kg): 17.65 and 20.25; of total proteins: 476.9 and 554.9 g, respectively. The protein efficiency ratio - PER (g of gain/g of consumed protein) in analogue treatments was: 2.09 and 1.80. There were no statistically significant differences between examined treatments (P> 0.05). Considering that the source of protein did not significantly affect the intensity of growth and the use of food by lambs of Mis population in intensive fattening (P>0.05), fish meal can be replaced by Eco-fish meal - plant protein, since according to Commission Decision 9/2001 on BCE protection (OJEC, 2001), there is a distance to the use of fish meal, as a source of protein.