Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Finding the best shrimp diet


With increasing feed prices, researchers are looking at alternative diets for shrimp, says Dr D. Allen Davis from the University of Auburn, Australia. The values of shrimp seafood products are declining, stable or in some cases increasing only slightly which is wonderful news for the consumer. At the same time feed, fuel and processing costs are rapidly increasing and causing some US commercial aquaculture operations to cut production costs or go out of business.

Given a fixed formulation, the cost of shrimp feeds has almost doubled in the last two years. This is in response to a wide number of factors but was first triggered by rising and unprecedented increase in the price of fish meal from 2006 to 2008. The rapid increase in world fish meal prices was followed by a moderate increase in the cost of other protein sources and a recent rapid rise in grain prices. All of these taken together caused feed costs to nearly double without corresponding increases in the value of the final product.

Although fish nutrition research cannot change world prices, it can provide alternative formulations to moderate feed price increases. Fortunately for the shrimp industry, researchers have been working towards the goal of quantifying nutrient requirements and providing information on the use of alternative feed ingredients for some time. Traditional shrimp feed formulations include 20 to 30 percent fish meal which is one of the most costly protein sources. Fish meal is an ingredient for which world supply cannot be expanded and is considered a limiting factor for the continued expansion of aquaculture. Read more...

This blog is written by Martin Little The Aquaculturists, published and supported by the International Aquafeed Magazine from Perendale Publishers.

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