Production Of Earthworm As A Non- Conventional Fish Feed Ingredient xxx

ABSTRACT

The production of Earthworm through the use of cow pig and poultry manure was carried out at the cattle, piggery and poultry units of the teaching and research farm of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike. The study was carried out to examine earthworm production using cowdung, piggery manure and poultry droppings. The study also assessed the quality and quantity of various earthworm produced in the various manures used. The experimental set up is such that 25k110gramme of each manures were spread over the jute bag and the polythene bag in 3 replicates and they were inoculated with earthworm infested loamy soil. The earth worms matured within 2 weeks. There was significance difference ( p< 0.05) between cow, pig and poultry in mean weight and number. The study showed that the quantity of earthworms produced by the cow manures is large numerically 3372. 67. The ones produced from cow manure had smaller sizes when compared to that of pig while earthworm produced from pig manure is larger in sizes (14. 3cm) but lesser in number 491 poultry manure produced few earthworm and had the smallest size. However, the values recorded were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA)..