FEEDING FREQUENCY AND DIGESTIBILITY FOR CATFISH

What is it about?

Pond-raised channel catfish during food fish production are generally fed once daily to apparent satiation for optimum growth. However, during periods of low fish prices and high feed cost which have occurred periodically in the past, catfish may be fed every other day (EOD) as a management tool to reduce feed and production costs. Previous studies have shown that EOD feeding improves feed conversion ratio (FCR) of pond-raised channel catfish, which was thought to be related at least in part to less feed wastage because there is less chance to waste feed when fish are fed EOD in commercial ponds. It has also been speculated that fish fed EOD may digest the feed more efficiently than those fed daily. In this study we examined the effects of feeding once daily and EOD to apparent satiation on energy and nutrient digestibility/availability of channel catfish reared at optimal and suboptimal temperatures.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Previous studies suggest that the improved FCR in catfish fed EOD is likely a result of less feed wastage in EOD feeding. Results from this study further support this notion because energy and protein digestibility coefficients were not significantly influenced whether channel catfish were fed once daily or EOD to satiation.