Replacing the unsustainable and wild-caught fishmeal with field cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus) meal in Catla (Catla catla) fry diet: Effect for growth, in vivo digestibility, carcass composition, histopathological alterations, and disease tolerance.

Insect meal has been identified as one of the cutting-edge alternatives to substitute fishmeal (FM) in aquafeeds. However, the potential of FM replacing with field cricket meal (FCM) related to Calta catla fry stage has yet to be researched. Therefore, an eight-week experiment was designed to evaluate the performance of C. catla fry (0.22 ± 0.04 g/fish). The protein content of the FM of the control feed (0FCM) was replaced with 35% (35FCM), 70% (70FCM), and 100% (100FCM) of FCM. All the fish were hand-fed by respective research diets 5% of the body weight twice daily. Results showed that FCM could replace wild-caught fishmeal (67.1% crude protein) without adversely affecting growth performance, carcass composition, liver functions, and disease tolerance. Though in vivo protein digestibility significantly decreased (P<0.05) when the FCM percentage increased in the feed, it did not affect the performance of the fish. Therefore, FCM could be used to prepare fish-free feed in the C. catla fry stage. However, optimum technical know-how should be identified to certify the accessible and economically viable mass-scale production of FCM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]