Nutritional Evaluation of Fish Meals Using Four Short-Term Chick Tests

FISH MEALS have long been recognized as a source of high-quality protein for use in animal feeds. They also have long been recognized as varying considerably in composition and nutritive quality. This variation likely occurs because the meals are manufactured by a number of methods, from many species, from parts of fish as well as from whole fish, and are stored for varying periods prior to use. For as long a period as quality variations have been noted, methods have been under study to determine the nutritive quality not only of fish meal but of other protein concentrates. Grau and Carroll (1958), in a review of chemical and biological methods, conclude—“It has been clearly demonstrated that no single figure can be devised to represent the value of a protein because proteins are not entities, but a collection of various amino acids combined in various ways and present in various …