Farmers’ perception on quality of fish feed, brood stock and fingerling produced in commercial fish farms of Bangladesh

Abstract

In Bangladesh, aquaculture has expanded, diversified, intensified and technologicallyadvanced due to the decline in fish production from the open water natural sources. Quality seedsare prime requirements for aquaculture production. Quality of seeds depends on the quality ofbroods used for spawning. Breeding performance depends on the quality of feeds and feedingmanagement during brood stock rearing. The present study focused on the evaluation of qualityof feed used in the fish farms, the performance of brood stock and fingerlings of selected carp,catfish and perch farmed in Bangladesh through a survey. On the basis of top fish productiondistricts, we divided the whole country into four hubs, such as Mymensingh, Jashore, Cumillaand Rajshahi. Data were collected from 300 individual respondents of commercial fish farms, 75from each hub. It has been found that most of the farm owners (91%) used commercial feedinstead of homemade feed, though a considerable number of respondents replied that quality ofhomemade feed was better than commercial feed. Although most of the farm owners collect fryfrom private/own hatcheries (69%), a considerable number of grow out farms owners replied thatthe fry of government hatcheries/brood bank, river and BFRI were better than private hatcheriesin terms of growth performance, disease resistance and survivability. Therefore, for sustainableaquaculture, farm owners should be careful for the selection of feed, brood and fingerling.