Effect of Stocking Density on Production Characteristics, Costs, and Risk of Producing Fingerling Channel Catfish

Abstract

A pond production trial was conducted to compare the yield, growth, feed conversion ratio, costs, and economic risk of producing fingerling channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus at stocking rates of 1,398,990, 543,334, 211,010, and 81,955 fry/ha to obtain fish of the following lengths: 2.5, 7.6, 12.7, and 15 cm. Mean weight at harvest decreased as a logarithmic function of the stocking rate (y = 127.896 – 8.719·log _ex; R ² = 0.87), while yield increased linearly with the stocking rate (y = 1,347 + 0.003x; R ² = 0.87). A stocking rate of 211,010 fry/ha resulted in an 84% certainty that costs would be less than US$0.004/cm. Higher densities resulted in a certainty of 99% that the on-farm production costs would be less than the market price, while the lower density had a certainty of only 20%. The higher densities resulted in the greatest yield, number, and total length of fingerlings. The lowest density produced larger fingerling sizes, but the substantially lower yield resulted in the highest costs per fingerling as well as per kilogram and centimeter of fingerling produced. Production of smaller fingerlings at high stocking densities costs less and entails less economic risk, but additional research is needed to quantify the economic benefit of understocking larger fingerlings in catfish grow-out ponds.