Ukpong E. E.¹ , Jacob D. E.¹ , Nelson I. U.² , Jackson S. E.¹

1. Forestry and Natural Environmental Management Department, University of Uyo, Nigeria
2. Biodiversity Preservation Center, Uyo, Nigeria
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Molecular Ecology and Conservation, 2015, Vol. 5, No. 6   doi: 10.5376/ijmec.2015.05.0006
Received: 10 Jun., 2015    Accepted: 16 Jul., 2015    Published: 28 Oct., 2015

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Ukpong E.E., Jacob, D.E., Nelson I.U. and Jackson S.E., 2015, Assessment of Growth Rate of Juvenile African Giant Land Snail, Archachatina marginate, under Three Feeding Treatments, International Journal of Mol. Ecol. and Conserv, Vol.5, No.6, 1-4 (doi: 10.5376/ijmec.2015.05.0006)

This study assessed the growth rate of snailets of A. marginata under three feed treatment. Ninety snailets divided into thirty snailets per treatment were used for the study. Data collected include Shell Length, Shell Width, Aperture Length and Weight gained. The results indicate that Treatment C (T_C) had the highest value for all the growth parameters assessed, while Treatment A (T_A) had the least values. The mean Weight gained varied between 16.01±1.92g (T_C) and 12.55±0.90g (T_A) and was significantly different between the treatments (p<0.01), mean length and shell width varied between T_A (4.24±0.40, 6.50±0.40) and T_C (4.48±0.13, 6.92±0.30) and were not significantly different (p<0.05). The mean mouth aperture of A. marginata fed with T_C (4.90±0.19) was greater than and significantly different form T_A (4.35±0.30) and T_B (4.58±0.28) at p<0.05. These findings indicate that local farmers who feed their snailets with only vegetable leaves and fruits obtained locally could obtain mature snails with good weight and shell growth even without combination with any other feed material.

Growth rate; Snailets; Archachatina marginata; Feed treatment; Nigeria