What Type of Fish Feed Do I Choose or Use?

For some years, fish farmers in Nigeria have preferred highquality imported fish feeds, going along with the common belief, “if it is imported, it has to be better than locally made products”. Artisanal, locally produced fish feeds on left compared with locally manufactured feeds on right with oil coating. Note the local feed is dry and high in fiber with poor water stability, whereas the high quality feed is oil coated and much more palatable to fish. High quality fish feeds are stable in water for at least one hour. However this preference is changing as the cost of imported feeds has increased and now high quality, lower priced, locally manufactured fish feeds are becoming tested and proven by farmers. Increasingly such feeds are available and farmers are benefiting from their use. In spite of this, perhaps as many as 50% of fish farmers still make their own (artisanal) fish feeds (Aquaculture Director, Federal Department of Fisheries, pers. comm.,2010); some use high quality imported feeds for the first two months of growth, then switch over to their “home made” feeds. Many of these farmers do not keep records and fail to grasp their total expenditures and economic results be they positive or negative. By investing in low-cost feed milling equipment they feel they can save money but fail to realize the cost of their total investment in not only inferior equipment but also in a generator as they cannot rely on the national electrical grid of NEPA. One small fish hatchery operator was paying N118/hour to operate his generator while the same farmer stated his NEPA costs were only N8.3/hour.