Hybrid catfish (♂Ictalurus punctatus X ♀Ictalurus furcatus) production: Does mixed-size production make economic sense?

ABSTRACT

Alternative management strategies will be required to produce hybrid catfish (♂Ictalurus punctatus X ♀Ictalurus furcatus) year-round to provide continuous market supply. Hybrid catfish fingerlings were stocked at 9,880 head/ha singly or in co-culture with sub-marketable (mean weight = 454 ± 16 g) hybrid catfish carried over the winter from a previous year’s multi-size trial. Economic analyses compared cost of production ($/kg of market-size fish produced) and cash flow of single- and multiple-batch production of hybrid catfish for a single- and two-year period. Gross total and marketable yields were significantly greater in the mixed-size treatment as compared to the single-size treatment, in spite of the significantly greater percentage of market-size fish (84%) in the single-size treatment than in the mixed-size treatment (71%). Cost of production ($/kg) was 4% to 10% lower in the multi-size treatment in the single-year analysis, but 18% to 20% lower when the full two-year cycle was assessed. Cash flow and cash flow risk were improved substantially with the multi-size treatment primarily because the overwintered sub-market-size fish from the previous year reached market size three to four months earlier than in the single-size treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Catfish production
• catfish production costs
• hybrid catfish
• mixed-size production

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the staff and students of the Aquaculture and Fisheries Center at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff for assistance with both winter and summer stocking, sampling, and harvesting this study. We also thank Jeff Baxter, of Baxter Land Company, Arkansas City, Arkansas, for providing the hybrid catfish fingerlings used in this study. Nathan Stone, Lin Xie, and Matthew Recsetar provided helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.