Live maggots for laying Pekin ducks: a solution for both economic and environmental challenges of small farmers

Budi Indarsih, Mohammad Hasil Tamzil, Ni Ketut Dewi Haryani, I Nyoman Sukartha Jaya and Asnawi

Faculty of Animal Sciences, Mataram University, Lombok, Indonesia
budiindarsih@unram.ac.id

Abstract

This work aimed at examining the effects of live maggots (LM) as an additional animal protein supplementation to replace in part local fish on production performance and egg quality of laying Pekin ducks. One hundred and twenty Pekin ducks were randomly assigned to four treatment groups with 3 replicated pens, and each pen contained 10 ducks. Dietary treatments assigned were: 1. Control diet (C) without any supplementation, grounded local fish as a single protein; 2. Part of C + LM 100 g/kg; 3. Part of C + LM 150 g/kg and 4. Part of C + LM 200 g/kg respectively. Maggots were developed from waste of decayed local fishes. The feeding trial was 11 weeks (from 23 to 34 weeks of age). The study did not show any differences (p>0.05) on feed intake, egg production, egg mass, and final body weight. Egg shell weight, egg shell thickness, albumen index, yolk index, yolk color score, and Haugh Unit were not affected by all treatments (p>0.05). However, egg weight of the LM 200 g/kg diet (67.2±1.4 g/egg) was higher (p<0.05) compared to the control (62.2±1.4 g), LM-100 (62.1 ± 1.5 g) and LM-200 (63.3±2.1g). In conclusion, this study provides important insights on inexpensive nutrition and a sustainable environment for smallholder farmers with limited capital under a rural rearing system

Keywords: pekin ducks, maggots, feed intake, egg production, egg quality

Introduction

It is a fact that most of the protein ingredients for instance fishmeal are imported while locally available alternatives such as soybeans serve as food for humans. Several attempts have been made to find nutrient-rich substrates that are inexpensive and relatively abundant to partially or, even completely, replace these expensive components. However, alternative feed ingredients are not always able to maintain sustainability depending on their digestibility (Teguia and Beynen 2005). Maggots have recently become the main focus of research because maggots of the Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia Illucens) or BSF type are a type of black fly whose larvae (maggots) are capable of degrading organic waste. And also, they are very active in eating organic waste, have a short life cycle and produce large amounts of biomass material therefore they are an option worth exploring.

Maggot meal has been reported to be a possible alternative protein to poultry feed (Sheppard 2002; Teguia et al 2002; Ogunji et al 2008) even the promising protein without damaging the environment which is the current main issue of the clean environment.

The use of maggots in poultry feeding has been tried on broilers (Awoniyi et al 2003), and wild ducks (Gariglio et al 2019). As it is known that Pekin ducks are mostly raised for broiler ducks. However, in Lombok, Pekin ducks are raised as layer ducks by the small holders to replace the local layer ducks due to the later breeds being no longer available. To reduce feed cost, the local fish found in small rivers have been used as the single animal protein for many years and the only animal protein sources the duck farmers are rely on with no cost. Sooner or later the presence of local fish will be depleted and disrupt the environmental balance. In other words, live maggots for laying Pekin ducks are an effort to maintain the income of small holders and protect the environment. To the best of our knowledge, so far there is no maggot for laying Pekin ducks. Therefore, this study tries to answer the appropriate maggot level for layer Pekin ducks under the rural rearing system.

Materials and methods

Animal management and experimental design

The study was conducted in a layer duck farm in Dasan Cermen, Mataram City in Lombok of Indonesia from March to June, 2023. A total of 18 weeks-old 120 Pekin ducks were reared as layer producers and randomly allocated in a completely randomized design. They reared intensively with a litter system of compacted soil and cage density was 2.8 bird/m². Ducks were fed with sapu-sapu fish as a single source of protein, replaced with the live maggot (LM) as a larva from Black Soldier Fly (BSF). There were four dietary treatments, conventional feedstuff and local fish (LF) acted a single protein as the control group. Other dietary treatments were LF was replaced by 10,15 and 20% of dry matter. The larva of LM was developed by the farmers. Other feed stuffs were coarse rice bran and the expired loaf breads as energy sources in a conventional feeding. Unidentified algae were fed as a xanthophyll as a one of egg yolk color. The chemical composition of the feedstuff used here was based on the previous studies by authors (Indarsih et al 2015; 2016). The nutrition composition of the dietary treatments is presented in Table 1.

Developing of Maggot farming

Maggot farming was developed by the farmers as their positive response when we held community service for introducing this insect to farmers due to the matter of increasing feed cost leading to some farmers collapsing and environmental issues. The unhealthy environment surrounding the farm where dead or decayed fishes piled up and were thrown away carelessly were also our concern. This gives off a very pungent odor and pollutes the environment. It took time to accept this technology, finally the farmers and their family were willing to try it.

Chemical analysis

Samples of fresh maggots were collected for chemical analysis: Dry matter, crude protein, ether extract, and crude fiber following AOAC (1990) procedures at the Laboratory of the Faculty of Animal Science, Mataram University.

Measurements

Daily feed intake (DFI), feed conversion ratio (FCR), egg weight (EW), egg production (EP), egg mass production (EMP) and final body weight (FBW) were calculated. Egg qualities such as egg shell weight, egg shell thickness, albumen index, yolk index, yolk color score by yolk color fan 15 grade and Haugh Unit (HU) were evaluated.

Egg quality evaluation

Fifteen eggs per replicate were randomly collected at the end of week 2, 4, 6, and 8 during the dietary experiment for laboratory evaluation. Measurements on egg quality were carried out on the day of collection. A digital caliper at a precision 0.01g was used.

Analysis

a. Statistical analysis – The data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) following the General Linear Model (GLM) procedure of SPSS version 15.0 (2006). The differences between the means of groups were identified by the test of Duncan’s at 5% significance level.

Results and discussion

Production performance

The production performance of layer Pekin ducks fed with various substitution levels of live maggot (LM) is presented in Table 3. The feed intake (FI), egg production (EP), feed conversion ratio (FCR), and egg mass production (EMP) of Pekin ducks were not affected (p>0.05) by the substitution of the LM. The similar feed intake from the increased level of LM substituted to the diet might be due to the increase in palatability of feed, and high digestibility as supported by Attivi et al (2020) who worked with broilers and Shah 2020 worked with layer chickens. Substituting part of LM into the conventional ration of the farmer’s formula improved the egg production of the Pekin ducks at 20% LM. It showed that the egg production of LM-20 fed ducks was at the highest level (Figure 1.). Moreover, the most efficient FCR was also observed in LM-20 although not significant. All treatment groups showed similar FBW. In agreement with our results, Tahamtani et al (2021) reported that feeding LM had no effect on laying performance. In other words, feeding of live maggots up to 20% to layer Pekin ducks from 23 to 34 weeks of age showed similar performance (Table3).

Figure 1. Egg production of Peking ducks subjected to different levels of LM feeding at 34 wk. of age

Egg quality

Egg qualities in terms of egg shell weight, egg shell thickness, albumen index, yolk index, yolk color and HU were not affected by maggot levels (p>0.05) (Table 4). However, egg weight (67.2+1.40 g) was the heaviest (p<0.05) in the higher supplementation of LM feeding.

Although no differences (p>0.05) in egg quality due to different levels of LM were found, all quality characteristics were higher at the high level (LM-20). It is also possible that high levels of maggots provide better nutritional contents. The nutritional composition of maggot was dependent on the media from which the maggot can get the feed even if it is predicted to be equal to the media (Liland et al 2017). In this study, we used decayed sapu-sapu fish as a local fish which is high in protein. As reported by Chu et al (2020) that maggot is a local feed ingredient, a potential source of protein to be utilized with good energy content which is enriched by essential and non-essential amino acids, saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.

In regard to yolk color which is a quality indicator of an egg, in the present study provide the egg yolk color of the LM (14,53 to 14,73) was higher to that of the reported maggot meal by Zhao et al 2022 (4.14 to 4.42) and Tahamtani et al (2021). The orange color of the yolk in our study could be attributed to two factors. First, green algae at the 4% level were found to produce an egg yolk color on a scale of 14.22 to 15.00. And green algae were the main sources of xanthophyll (Indarsih et al 2015). Second, when we referred to the study of Secci et al 2018) found that some important nutrients of LM. Yolk eggs of Lohmann Brown Classic fed maggot meal was 1.6 mg/kg richer in γ-tocopherol, 3.7 mg/kg in lutein, 0.14 mg/kg β -carotene and 4.5 mg/kg in total carotenoids and yolk color was only 55.56 (light) performed with a Dr Lange Spectro-colour® colorimeter which was lighter than Soy Bean Meal (SBM) yolks. Yolk color score measured was around 4. Tahamtani (2021) also found that the color of the egg yolks of Bovans White hens was paler in the standard pellet concentrate feed without maggots. This is affected by a reduction of carotenoids (e.g., xanthophyll), which were delivered by natural raw materials.

Multiplier effects of maggot feeding

The positive effect of LM was that waste was reduced gradually and pushed the farmers to become aware of using waste. Even, women as housewives can easily be involved in providing the alternative protein source due to the simple and easy techniques. Moreover, marketing of duck eggs is generally calculated per egg, not calculated based on mass weight (per kg). Thus, thick egg shells and high egg weight will be advantageous if further processed into salted duck eggs because the eggs do not crack easily due to handling or cooking.

Conclusion

• Adding live maggots at the level of 20% in the diets could be better for improving egg weightcompared to the control group
  
  
• Maggot make use of waste and solve environmental problems in small scale farmers

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Mr. Amin, the owner of maggot farm for providing the black soldiers fly fresh larvae. The authors are also grateful to Mrs. Milasih and undergraduate students, Fauziah Fikjayani and Alfan Rezeki Nasution for bird care and technical support. The research was supported by the University of Mataram funds in the 2023 financial year.

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