Evaluation of β-D-Mannanase in Modulating Dietary Fiber Breakdown, Growth Efficiency, and Carcass Composition in Hatchling Snails (Archachatina marginata): Insights for Animal Biotechnology and Health

African Giant Land Snails (AGLS) are a good source of protein with low-fat content but with slow growth rate which may be due to genetic and nutritional factors. Convectional high fiber feed resources fed to AGLS have a marginal nutrient profile. Growth enhancers have been used to optimise productivity in other animals but reports on their use in AGLS nutrition are scanty. Therefore, the effects of diets supplemented with enzymes on performance of AGLS were investigated in this study. Hatching AGLS (n = 300), weighing 25.60 ± 0.39 g were randomly allotted to four diets containing 0.00 (T₁, control), 0.10 (T₂), 0.15 (T₃) and 0.20/kg (T₄) β-D-mannanase in five replicates for 98 days. Using standard procedures, Feed Intake (FI), mean weekly Body Weight Gain (BWG), Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) and carcass characteristics were determined. Levels ofβ-D-mannanase did not significantly affect FI, but total BWG increased with increasing levels of β-D-mannanase. The FCR was not affected by increasing dosage of β-D-mannanase. Carcass traits were significantly influenced by the treatments. The feed cost increased with increase in the level of enzyme inclusion (p < 0.05), but the cost/weight gain decreased with increasing dosage of the enzyme, with the lowest cost/weight gain observed in 0.15 g β-D-mannanase supplementation.