Protein is one of the most important nutrients in animal feed. It is the basis of body structure. It helps in productions of hormones and chemical reactions in the body, and it can also be converted into sugar and fat to compensate for deficiency in other classes of nutrition. Without protein, other feed’s nutrients cannot be used by the body. Most of the time, protein in animal feed is expressed as crude protein.
Crude protein (CP) is the measurement of protein both from protein and non-protein sources in animal feed. It is usually expressed in percentage. Researchers have discovered that catfishes need between 35 and 48 percent crude protein in their feed to grow well. The bigger the catfish, the lower the crude protein needed in its feed.