COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF PERFORMANCE OF SNAILS ARCHACHATINA MARGINATA FED MILK LEAFEUPHORBIA HETEROPHYLLA AS AGAINST PAWPAW LEAFCARICA PAPAYA AND CONCENTRATE AS SOLE FEED

The cost of procuring meat as an animal protein source in Nigeria is on the increase. There is therefore the need to source for alternative cheap source of animal protein. Snails are herbivores that can utilize plants as feed. An investigation was therefore conducted to determine the performance of snails on plants as against concentrates that are very expensive. 54 Snails were divided into three treatment groups comprising milk leaf (ML), pawpaw leaf (PL) and concentrate (C). There were three replicates with six snails per replicate in a completely randomized design. The feeding trial lasted 10 weeks. The result of proximate analysis showed that crude protein of ML was 33.7%, PL29.3% and C 46.3%. There were no significant differences between the weight gains of snails on ML and C which were significantly higher than those on PL (P<0.05). Snails on ML were also better converter of feed consumed with a feed conversion ratio of 1.95 compared with the values for snails on C (2.29) and PL (3.2). It can be concluded that that the performance of snails on ML was the best and can be recommended to snail farmers in order to increase the animal protein supply in Nigeria at a cheaper cost