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FEED MANAGEMENT
The importance of precise biomass estimation in the feeding of farmed shrimp By Jason Enlow, XpertSea
When done right, shrimp farming can be a profitable business and a sustainable alternative to open sea fishing, but shrimp can be tricky. In the folk tale The Wolf and the Shrimps, some clever shrimp trick a hungry wolf into not eating them. Like the wolf, farmers can be misled by their shrimp, at least in terms of knowing how many there are in a pond. This is important because the estimated number of shrimp will provide the basis for managing and feeding them. Equally critical is being able to determine the right feed conversion ratio (FCR). While check trays and scales can help, many farmers are looking past traditional manual methods to keep their overhead down and optimize their profits. These farmers are embracing recent technological advances in gathering and analyzing data, so they can effectively track metrics such as weight distribution, average weights and weekly growth rates. “In every commercial aquaculture situation, knowledge of actual animal growth rates, feed intake and growth
efficiencies in different environmental conditions, as well as means for estimating and predicting growth, is essential for the viability of the enterprise." 1
The case study: Suyog Aqua Farms—aquaculture shrimp farming Located in Maharashtra, India, Suyog Aqua Farms opened in 2005. Mr. Suyog Powle managed the farm until
2017. During his tenure, the farm annually produced 850 metric tons of L. vannamei shrimp and occupied over 80 hectares of land. The challenge on Suyog’s farm, and on many aquaculture farms, is being able to achieve an optimal FCR (feed conversion ratio). These assessments are sometimes unreliable because they depend on physical observations and are further limited by the technician’s experience level. It is not the best combination when trying to gather data about your ponds.
