Nutritional and functional enhancement of cottonseed meal via diverse processing techniques as soybean meal alternatives in grass carp (<i>Ctenopharyngodon idella</i>): Impacts on growth, muscle texture, and intestinal homeostasis.

ABSTRACT: This study aimed to evaluate the nutritional efficacy of various cottonseed meal processing methods to enable cottonseed meal to be used as an alternative to soybean meal in aquatic feed for grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella). A total of 720 juvenile fish (50.02 ± 0.23 g) were randomly assigned to six diets; one with 44% soybean meal (SBM) and five where SBM was fully replaced by unprocessed (CM), hydrolyzed (HCM), concentrated (CPC), roasted (RCM), or fermented cottonseed meal (FCM) for an eight-week feeding trial with three replicates of 40 fish each. Fish fed CM diets showed significantly impaired (P < 0.05) growth, muscle quality, antioxidant capacity, intestinal morphology, and microbiota structure. Reprocessed CM diets mitigated these adverse effects to varying extent

SUBMITTER: Shi Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12828527 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature