Study of African Catfish (<em>Clarias gariepinus</em>) carcass in different weight categories

Abstract

The aim of this experiment was to study Clarias gariepinus carcass in three weight categories (P₁=below 1kg; P₂= 1 to 2kg and P₃=over 2kg) to analyze yield of carcass with head (YCH), without head (YCW), fillet (YF), abdominal muscles (YAM), eatable parts (YEP), dressed out (YDO) and percentages of skin (PSK), head (PHE), viscera (PVI), total residues (PTR); and to determine the proximate composition of fillet (crude protein, moisture, fat and ash) . Sixty catfish were used in a completely randomized design (3 trataments with 20 replications), with 5% significance level. Fillet yield was higher for P₂ (38,61%) than for P₁ and for P₃ fillet. The eatable parts and dressed out yield were higher for P₂ (YEP=46,27% and YDO=56,67%), but were not different from P₃. The carcass with head was higher than P3, and didn’t differ from P₂. P₂ was lower in PSK (4,64%), PHE (23,62%) and PTR (53,73%), without being different from P₃ in percentages of head and total residues. There was no significant difference for yield of abdominal muscles, carcass with head, percentages of viscera. P₂ (2,25% and 77,49%) did not differ from P₁ (1,51% and 77,78%) and from P₃ (3,03% and 76,39%) for fat and moisture, respectively, while for crude protein there was no significant difference (P > 0.01). It may be concluded that P₂ provided better filleting yieds, while the proximate composition of fillet in the three weight categories was relatively similar to the increase of fat deposition in the fish over 1kg live weight.