Secret for a Successful Fish Feed Formulation for Profitable Fish Farming Business (Part 1)

Feed Formulation is a method of combining selected grounded feed ingredients in varying proportions to comply with predetermined nutrient requirements. Due to the continues increase in the cost/price of fish feed (complete feed – nutritionally contain all essential nutrients) in most developing country like Nigeria, where about 95% of the fish farmers depend on complete diet/feed to nurture their fish, especially cat-fish and tilapia for quick/rapid growth in a semi-intensive or intensive system of fish culture. Due to this reason, many fish farmers have expressed an interest in mixing their own feeds at the farm or home but as a fish feed nutritionist with my skills, knowledge and experience in fish feed formulation/compounding, I do like to ask my client or any farmer who want to be producing is/her own feed some of the questions listed below:

1. Is it economical? Unless you have a large number of fish to be fed, the investment in fish feed processing and blending equipment will probably be more than the savings realized.
2. Do you have adequate storage facilities?
3. Will you be able to buy feed ingredient on a year-round basis?
4. Are the feed grain and concentrates of a consistent quality?

If your response to the question started above is positive, note that artificial feeds (complete feed) are well-compounded mixture of feedstuffs and can be in mash or pellets form that could be fed to fish. Mash feeds are good for fries and pellets for fingerlings, juveniles and adults depending on pellet sizes.

Note when formulating fish feed, everything is centered on dietary crude protein and the dietary crude protein (CP) requirements for fast and healthy growth of fish vary with fish species. I do recommend the following  % crude protein for cat-fish feed formulation for my client:

1. semi-intensive culture with natural foods (20-25%CP)
2. intensive culture for fingerlings (40-48%CP) and
3. Juveniles/adult fish in intensive culture (30-35%)

For a successful fish feed formulation, fish farmer(s) must be acquainted with?????….  I advise you read our next Article ‘Secret for a Successful Fish Feed Formulation for a Profitable Fish Farm Business (Part 2)’.

Nicholas Izekor is an Aquaculture Trainer at The Ark Shore Konsults (T.A.S.K.). He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fisheries Management from the University of Benin, Nigeria.