Comparative Study of Maize Bran and Chicken Manure as Fish Feed Supplement: Effects on Growth Rate of Oreochromis niloticus in Pond Culture Systems  

Beaven Utete , Besiline Dzikiti
Department of Wildlife and Safari Management, Chinhoyi University of Technology, P Bag 7724 Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6   doi: 10.5376/ija.2013.03.0006
Received: 15 Feb., 2013    Accepted: 25 Feb., 2013    Published: 07 Apr., 2013
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This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:

Utete and Dzikiti, 2013, Comparative Study of Maize Bran and Chicken Manure as Fish Feed Supplement: Effects on Growth Rate of Oreochromis niloticus in Pond Culture Systems, International Journal of Aquaculture, Vol.3, No.6 23-29 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2013. 03.0006)

Abstract

Aquaculture is an emerging reasonable answer to overexploitation of wild fish stock as the demand for wild fish stock is outstripping supply due to several geo-socio-economic reasons. However, productivity and profitability of aquaculture in Zimbabwe is affected by high costs of fish feeds. This study was done to compare and evaluate the effects of maize bran and chicken manure on growth of Oreochromis niloticus cultured in ponds at Lake Chivero. Three replicate spherical concrete ponds were each applied with chicken manure, maize bran and others left to be the control ponds. A complete randomized experimental design was used. Fish sampled from maize bran fed ponds had the highest growth rate, followed by fish fed with chicken manure ponds and, the control ponds respectively. The use of locally available waste products and feed materials in can be useful in the profitability of O. niloticus culture locally as cereal bran such as maize bran is generally cheap and chicken manure are readily available in Zimbabwe. Further studies should be undertaken on how maize and chicken manure should be applied with proper feeding regimes and ratios to stimulate algae production as well as to prevent fish mortality.

Keywords
Pond aquaculture; Feed supplement; Growth rate; Tilapia; Survival rate; Lake Chivero
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