Browsing by Author "Odwongo, Moses"

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    Assessing growth performance of house crickets (acheta domesticus) reared on leucaena leaf meal.
    (Busitema University, 2026) Odwongo, Moses
    The increasing demand for sustainable and affordable sources of proteins has generated interest in edible insects as an alternative to conventional livestock production. The house cricket (Acheta domesticus) is considered a promising species because of its high nutritional value, efficient feed utilization and low environment requirement. However, the suitability of locally available agro-based substrates for cricket’s remains insufficiently investigated in Uganda. The study evaluated the growth performance and survival of Acheta domesticus reared on maize bran and Leucaena leucocephala leaf meal – based diet at Busitema University Arapai Campus Soroti. The experiment employed completely randomized design comprising three dietary treatments: 100% Maize bran as control (T1), 100%, Leucaena leaf meal (T6), and 50:50 mixture of maize bran and leucaena leaf meal (T11), with three replicates per treatment and 50 crickets per replicate. The results showed that maize bran supported superior cricket performance compared to leucaena-containing diets. Cricket feed 100% maize bran maintained positive weight gain throughout most of the experimental period, whereas those feed 100% Leucaena and the 50:50 maize bran- Leucaena diet exhibited negative weight changes from approximately week 4 onwards. Feed intake was significantly higher in maize bran treatment in most weeks (P < 0.05), while intake in Leucaena- containing treatments remained very low throughout the treatment. Survival also differed significantly among treatments from week 2 onwards. The study concludes that Leucaena leaf meal at 50% and 100% inclusions levels was unsuitable as a sole or a major dietary substrate for Acheta domesticus under the conditions of these experiments. The poor performance was likely associated with low feed acceptance and the presence of ant nutritional Compounds particularly mimosine.