Authors: George, F. O. A.; Akinyemi , A. A. and Folarin, S. B
Journal of Social Science and Pol icy Review
Abstract
This study was conducted to evaluate the economic effect of replacing fish oi l wi th vegetable oil in the diet of catfish (Clarias gariepinus ). 375 fingerl ings 6.71± 0.69g body weight were stocked at 20 fish per net hapa (60cm x 35cm x 30cm) suspended in an ear then pond of 66m x 30m x 1.5m. Three repl icate per group of fish were fed at 5% body weight wi th five isonitrogenous diets (40% crude protein) wi th fish oi l compounded diet as control and fish oi l replacement wi th groundnut oi l (TD2), soya bean oil (TD3), shea butter oi l (TD4) and palm oi l (TD5).
The experiment lasted for 8 weeks. At the end of the experiment , growth and economic parameters in terms of weight gain (WG), feed intake (FI), feed conversion ratio (FCR), value of fish (VoF), cost of feed used (CoF), profi t index (PI), indices of costs (IC) and economic conversion rat io (ECR) were measured. WG, FCR, VoF, and CoF did not show significant difference (P≥ 0.05) among the treatments. However, the highest
WG and VoF were recorded in TD5 (31.53g and N17.64 respectively) and lowest WG was observed in f ish fed TD1 (27.57g) whi le lowest VoF (N15.65) was observed in TD2. FCR ranged between 1.34 in TD2 and TD4 respect ively and 1.42 in TD1. PI and IC showed significant difference among treatments. PI was significant ly higher in TD5 (1.59) than other treatments, however, the lowest PI was observed in TD3 (1.41). IC was signif icantly lowest in TD5 (0.27), but highest in TD1 (0.32). ECR values were not significantly different among treatments. As a resul t, palm oil as replacement for fish oil in diet of catfish fingerlings had bet ter performance in terms of growth and cost effectiveness.