44
Supporting the replacement of marine animal ingredients: Improving palatability and performance in whiteleg shrimp diets Rui A. Gonçalves, Sofia Morais, Lucta
World aquaculture production of Litopenaeus vannamei was over 4.9 million tons in 2020, representing 53% of crustacean production (FAO 2020), and is expected to continue to increase in coming years. To keep the expected production growth, the shrimp aquaculture industry faces several challenges. The need for consistent and predictable supplies of ingredients is possibly the most critical challenge and its successful accomplishment will be influenced by several factors other than just economics.
Shrimp farming black box Shrimp are mostly cultivated in environments with low A
visibility and rich in dissolved chemicals. Furthermore, shrimp are slow and selective feeders, which further increases the risk for high nutrient leaching and feed wastage. In recent years, the utilization of technology in shrimp farming has increased but it’s still complex to get accurate information about fluctuations in production parameters, feed intake, environmental impact, etc. Shrimp notoriously depends on highly specialized chemosensory systems to identify, locate and ingest food. Therefore, the shrimp industry is aware that formulated diets must be chemically attractive to aid in the rapid localization and ingestion of feed pellets. Palatability enhancement of diets helps to reduce the
B
Figure 1. Palatability trial with individually-housed shrimp (n=15 ± SEM), with pellet intake assessed at 30 minutes (A) and 90 minutes (B) after providing the feed. Experimental diets were formulated to have 8.4-8.7% CF and 35.5-36.0% CP, including increasing levels of fishmeal (15-20%) balanced by decreasing levels of soybean meal (30-23.0%) and varying levels of wheat flour (35.2-37.3%). Poultry byproduct (10.0%) was also included. Asterisks indicate results of t-tests of paired comparisons: ****P<0.0001; ***P<0.001; **P<0.01; ns – non-significant (P>0.05).
Aquafeed: Advances in Processing & Formulation Vol 14 Issue 2 2022
