The resources, costs and returns and
other factors affecting fish production. A sample of 44 fish farmers was
randomly selected, collected in 2006 production season through administration
of a questionnaire to the fish farmers. Analysis of the data was done using
descriptive statistics and budgeting technique. The analysis revealed that
land, water, labour and capital were the main resources employed in fish
production. The costs and returns analysis indicated that, variable cost
constituted 97.63% of the total cost of fish production in the study area,
while the fixed cost constituted 2.37%.
Amongst the variable inputs,
fingerlings/juveniles (42.82%) and feed (34.70%) constituted the highest
(77.52%) to cost of production, while hired labour constitutes 16.91%. The cost
of production was N571, 231.79, the total revenue of N5, 853,625.64 and the net
income was N5, 282, 393.85 indicating that fish production was
highly profitable. Despite the high profitability in fish production, fish
farmers identified lack of finance (97.7%), lack of good market (81.8%), pests
anddiseases (56.8%), and water supply (21%) as their most important problems in
fishproduction. With this high level of profitability in fish farming, it is
recommended that this information should be disseminated to all the farmers in
these and other surrounding communities.
How
do I choose my Ingredients?
Three
major factors govern the choice of ingredients, once you have decided to make
your own aquaculture feeds. These are:
- Suitability for species being
cultured (type and quality)
- Quantity available locally and regularity of supply
- Cost
- Quantity available locally and regularity of supply
- Cost
SUITABILITY
Major
sources of high-protein animal and vegetable ingredients, together with cereals
or cereal by-products and, probably, vitamin/mineral premixes will be required.
In fact a very wide range of ingredients can be utilized - this topic has been
covered in section 4. Each species has its own dietary requirements (section
6). Some thrive better on certain types of ingredients than on others and
different proportions of them are needed. The dietary requirements of different
species are discussed in section 6, while Appendix II gives some typical
examples of the various ingredients and their proportions (formulae) used in
actual diets. Choosing the ingredients to be used in feed manufacture on your
farm is firstly a matter of matching the types available locally (or that can
be imported) with the needs of the formulae of feed suitable for the species of
fish or shrimp which you are farming. The first thing to do therefore is to
prepare a list of the raw materials available to you.
Having
prepared that list, you must make an assessment of the quality of the
ingredients available. This means you must carefully define each raw material
(see sections 3 and 4) and allot to it a real or theoretical analytical
composition. This information is essential before formulation work (section
5.2) can be done. Real analyses of local ingredients may be available from the
suppliers or from surveys conducted by local government departments of
fisheries or other livestock production departments or by local universities.
In the absence of local information, ingredient compositional tables have to be
used (Appendix IV). This is less satisfactory than the use of accurate local
information but is often necessary.
Finally,
you must try to find reputable suppliers who are known to supply good quality
ingredients, free from adulteration and toxicity. Quality, as is stressed in
many parts of this manual, is an essential part of your feeding programme
which, if neglected, can have disastrous results. Talk to other livestock
farmers and to the livestock departments in local universities and government
institutions - they will be able to point you towards the reliable suppliers of
ingredients.
QUANTITY AND REGULARITY OF SUPPLY
Choose
ingredients which are regularly available in sufficient quantities. Some
ingredients are only available seasonally. The more regular the supply of each
ingredient is, the better. Otherwise you will have to purchase much larger
quantities than you would like to, and face the problems of longer-term
storage, or you will have to make frequent changes in your feed formulation
because of the lack of a specific ingredient which is not available in
sufficient quantities to supply your needs. Sometimes a very suitable
ingredient may be available locally. However, if you want to include an
ingredient in a formulation at a 57, inclusion level, for example, and you are
going to make 500 tons of feed per year, but there is only about 100 kg of the
material available per week, it is unsatisfactory. It is not going to be
suitable for use, even though it is basically a good ingredient. In this
situation it would be better Co include it in only one of the types of feed you
are making (say for a starter feed) rather than try to include it in them all
and run out of it every few days and have to change the formulae. So, the
message is: choose ingredients which are available in sufficient quantities on
a regular basis.
COST
Cost
is the last but not the least of the three major factors to consider. The cost
of each ingredient can vary quite markedly from one location to another,
depending on supply and demand. What may be a very acceptable ingredient in one
place may have to be rejected, or used in smaller quantities, in another
because it is too expensive. Cost obviously interacts with availability and
suitability. All these factors have to be reviewed simultaneously in the
selection of ingredients for your compound feeds.
You
should therefore complete your summary of the raw materials available in a
tabular form which shows analytical characteristics (composition - from actual
local data or from tables) and cost per unit at the farm site. This table will
be used when you formulate your feed (i.e., decide how much of each ingredient
to use) and assess its potential cost.
How
do I Decide How Much of Each Ingredient to Use (Formulation)?
A
great deal of information has, by now, been gathered by you. You know (section
5.1) the analytical characteristics and cost of the available ingredients; the
requirements (section 6) on the animal you are farming are known; and typical
examples of formulae are available (Appendix II). How is all this information
to be put to use in deciding how a feed formulation should be constructed? Each
ingredient used should be included because it contributes a particular
component necessary in the diet. For example, it may be a good source of marine
protein, it may supply a need for a certain type of fatty acid, etc. Also the
object is to satisfy the dietary requirements of the animal at the cheapest
cost. This is known as 'least cost formulation'.
Least
cost formulation is best done using a specifically designed computer programme.
The computer stores all the data gathered about the available raw materials
(analyses and cost), together with the specifications of the feeds to be
formulated. It will then do the necessary calculations and will turn out a
least-cost formulation. Although computer hardware and software for this
purpose is available it may not be economically sensible to purchase it unless
very large numbers of such calculations are regularly necessary, e.g., in a
large feed mill or a group of smaller ones. On an individual farm it may only
be necessary to do the basic formulations once - after that it may only be a
matter of examining the effect of relatively minor changes. These changes may
be either in specification, based on new information as to the animal's
requirements, or in the ingredients, based on new availability or cost data.
Linear programming for least-cost formulation is therefore not dealt with in
this manual since it is not thought appropriate for small scale aquaculture.
Those who are interested in this subject are recommended to consult Chow et
al., (1980).
Feed
formulation by 'hand' calculation is a tedious and repetitive (but not
difficult) process of trial and error. A simple calculator is necessary for
this work. Some examples of the way in which it can be done are worked through
in this section of the manual.
For
formulation, the following information is necessary:
1. A list of available raw
materials, together with compositional data and cost information;
2. The specifications of the diet to be made, in terms of levels of protein, lipid, EAA, EFA, etc.;
3. Knowledge of the special suitability of certain individual raw materials for the animal to be fed.
2. The specifications of the diet to be made, in terms of levels of protein, lipid, EAA, EFA, etc.;
3. Knowledge of the special suitability of certain individual raw materials for the animal to be fed.
The
first step in formulation is therefore to assemble the above information in an
organized and accessible way.
The
second stage is to draw up a worksheet for feed formulation, which includes
provision for the major nutrients and for cost data. An example of a data sheet
is given in Table 18.
In
Table 18, column 1 is for the full description of the ingredients, column 2 is
for the proposed inclusion rate, and column 3 is for the cost of that proposed
inclusion rate (e.g., a 21% inclusion rate of an ingredient costing US$ 0.50/kg
would contribute 0.50 × 21/100 = US$ 0.105 to the cost of each kg of diet).
Columns 4 are for the contributions certain inclusion rates will make to the
analytical characteristics of the diet (e.g., a 15% inclusion of an ingredient
with a protein level of 44% would contribute 44 × 15/100 = 6.6% of protein to
the final diet). Similarly column 5 is to record the available energy
contributed to the feed by the inclusion level of each ingredient contemplated
(see later in this sub-section for calculation of this factor). The results can
then be totalled to see how they comply with the specifications for the ration.
Re-adjustments can then be made, using another worksheet or modifications to
the same one.
The
worksheet given only refers to the major nutrients because it is necessary to
balance these with the principal specifications of the diet first, before other
factors such as EAA content, etc., can be examined. When the basic diet has
been provisionally established its other analytical features can be examined
and adjustments made to reach the final, balanced, formulation.
Now
let us assume that we have ingredient data ready and that we have inserted on
the worksheet (Table 18) what the specifications of the diet to be formulated
are. How do we start the formulation? It is here that the experience of the
formulator comes in. He will have certain pre-determined ideas in his mind
about minimum inclusion rates of certain ingredients, based on his and others'
experience. This experience is a constantly changing and developing matter; it
is also very specific to the individual doing the formulation. It is therefore impossible
to lay down in this manual specific rates of minimum inclusion, especially as
there are so many species and different raw materials available. However, it is
hoped that the examples of feed formulae given in Appendix II and the
discussion of dietary requirements in section 6 will help you to start to form
your own judgements of these matters. Personal judgement is an essential part
of formulation and it is a factor which the computer cannot replace.
For
the purpose of the following examples to be worked through in demonstrating how
formulation is done, I have selected a very simple diet -initially to consist
of only three ingredients - and a theoretical diet specification. For
simplification I am also going to use only two analytical characteristics - the
protein and the lipid level. I am also going to assume that, of these three
ingredients, one which is of known nutritional value exists locally and is of
acceptable cost. The formulator in the example has therefore already decided,
on the basis of past experience, on a minimum inclusion rate for it. Thus the
amount of this ingredient is already fixed. Let us assume that he has four
other ingredients to select from.
Then the actual combinations of
ingredients can be calculated as follows:
 |
Thus, for the four alternatives, the
levels of each ingredient in the final diet (remember the above mixture
constitutes only 90% of the final mix) would be:
1. 44.8
× 0.9 = 40.3% groundnut and 55.2 × 0.9 = 49.7% rice
2. 52.6
× 0.9 = 47.3% groundnut and 47.4 × 0.9 = 42.7% maize
3. 28.4
× 0.9 = 25.6 soybean and 71.6 × 0.9 = 64.4% rice
4. 35.1
× 0.9 = 31.6 soybean and 64.9 × 0.9 = 58.4% maize (Totals = 90%)
We can now check out the effect of
combining each of the four alternatives with fish meal on the final dietary
protein level and, while we are doing so, examine also the level of lipid in
the final diet achieved by each combination. The diet cost can also be
calculated from the ingredient costs.
Feed Types
Firstly I want to
explain the types of aquaculture feed, before continuing to deal with the kinds
of machinery used in their manufacture. Figure 3 shows the major types of feeds
used in aquaculture.
Aquaculture feeds
fall basically into two types - dry and non-dry. Dry feeds are normally made
from dry ingredients but they can also be made by drying a feed made from moist
ingredients or from mixtures of dry and moist ingredients. Dry feeds are not
completely free from moisture; they reach an equilibrium moisture content
(usually about 7-13%) depending on the environment. Non-dry feeds are divided
into two major categories - wet and moist. There is no agreed or exact
demarkation line between them: I define wet feeds as those which are made
entirely or almost entirely from high moisture ingredients, such as 'trash'
fish, waste slaughterhouse products, undried forage, etc. As such they would
have moisture contents of about 45-70%. Moist feeds are made from mixtures of
wet, or moist, and dry raw materials, or from dry ingredients to which moisture
has been added. Usually moist feeds range from 18-45% moisture. There is no
really clear division between 'moist' and 'wet' feeds. A third class of
products - flaked feed - is designed for aquarium fish, fish fry and early
post-larval shrimp and is therefore not covered in this manual.
Dry feeds may be
simple mixtures of dry ingredients, in which case they are called 'mashes' or
meals'. If they are formed into a compacted shape, which may be hard or
relatively soft they are called pellets (sometimes large pellets are referred
to as cubes in livestock feeds but this term is rarely applied in aquaculture
because pellet size is mostly quite small). Pellets can be made in a range of
sizes (see section 4.3.). Depending on the processing technique used, pellets
may float or sink when placed in water. The non-floating type are often broken
up and then sieved into a range of smaller sizes, called crumbles or granules,
for small fish or shrimp.
Types of Machinery or Equipment
The main types of
machinery necessary for the production of each type of aquaculture feed dealt
with in this manual. A brief description of each piece of equipment follows.
The names and addresses of some feed equipment suppliers are given in Appendix
III.
Scales
Accurate scales
for weighing ingredients and completed feeds are essential parts of all feed
mills. For the size of operations being considered here, simple platform scales
(Figure 4) are adequate. The type that have a direct reading dial are the
easiest to use and are least likely to cause mistakes to be made. Those which
require manual balancing by moving counter weights along a bar are less
reliable, but cheaper. Accurate manufacture according to formulation depends on
good scales; this item is often neglected, with insufficient money being spent
on it. Scales with a taring device are the best (the ability to adjust to zero
after a container has been placed on them so that the weight of the actual
ingredient being weighed can be read directly from the dial).
Grinders/Mills
(Dry Ingredients)
The mill or dry
grinder is a means of reducing the size of dry ingredients so that they are
suitable for mixing into a feed and for any subsequent processes that occur
during manufacture. There are many types of mill available. The two most common
ones are attrition, or plate mills, and hammermills.
The attrition or
plate mill depends on shearing the feed between two roughened plates, one or
both of which are 'rotating'. This type of mill is good for coarse grinding but
is not very efficient at producing the fine particles from typical aquaculture
feed ingredients which are necessary for high water stability feeds.
Hammermills are
the type of impact mill (other types, such as centrifugal impact mills are
frequently used for grinding flour) which is most generally suitable for
reducing the particle size of a wide range of dry animal feed ingredients. The
basic principle of the hammermill is that its grinding chamber consists of a
series of stationary or, more often, swinging, hammers pinned to plates attached
to a central rotor. The hammers strike and break up the incoming material,
which is forced through a perforated steel screen. Sometimes a fan or blower is
used to assist the removal of the ground product.
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