Effects of Two Pelletized Feed Formulations on Experimental Freshwater Prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii, Pond Production, Processing, and Costs

Abstract

With rapid globalization of the aquaculture industry, significant differences in freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii, survival, count, and yield have serious implications to the economic viability of the feed management systems for their production. A grow-out experiment compared the effects of an experimental, sinking, pelletized 35%-pro-tein shrimp diet and a commercially-available sinking, pelletized 32%-protein catfish diet on freshwater prawn production, processing, and costs. Experimental results showed that survival, yield, and feed conversion were not significantly (P > 0.05) different between ponds fed with the experimental shrimp diet and commercially-available catfish diet. The total costs of pond grow-out of freshwater prawns using two feed formulations were estimated assuming a hypothetical risk-free commercial pond production system consisting of 25 adequately-sloped 0.8-ha production ponds. A higher break-even price was estimated for prawns fed with the experimental shrimp diet. The break-even prices were $6.75/kg and $7.49/kg for heads-on and fresh-on-ice prawns raised in ponds fed with catfish diet and shrimp diet, respectively. Further research on prawn diets should be directed toward improving feed conversion.

Key Words:

• Freshwater prawn
• pond production
• feed formulations
• break-even prices
• Macrobrachium rosenbergii