An Economic Comparison of Producing Catfish, Ictalurus punctatusStockers with Either 9-cm, 11-cm, or 13-cm Fingerlings

Abstract

A pond production study was conducted to analyze the effect of fingerling size at stocking on net yield, growth, final size, and feed conversion ratio of stocker catfish produced on farm. Channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatusfingerlings of either 9-cm, 11-cm, or 13-cm were stocked into 0.04-ha earthen ponds at 100,000/ha for 116 days. Stocking larger fingerlings significantly (P < 0.05) increased total yield, net yield, net daily yield, growth, final weight, final length, and FCR. Total yield was related linearly to size of fingerling at stocking (y = 732.3x – 3513.5; R² = 0.93). Mean weight of fish at harvest was related linearly to the size of fingerling at stocking (y = 10.841x – 41.159; R² = 0.83). Total operating costs ($/ha) and breakeven costs per stocker ($/fish) increased with increasing size of fingerling stocked while breakeven price on a weight basis ($/kg) decreased with increasing size of fingerling stocked. The risk of production costs exceeding market price was lower for production of larger stockers, but the greater capital requirements associated with the higher yields of larger stockers may increase financial risk farm wide.

Key Words:

• Channel catfish
• Ictalurus punctatus
• stocker production
• stocker costs
• stocking sizes