The Fish farming business is experiencing a huge decline just as majority of the business in Nigeria of nowadays are doing due to the recession and bad exchange rate . The recession is affecting the fish farming industry in many way but there is this one that appears to be the primary problem of the industry and its HIGH COST OF FEED.

High cost of feed: 80% of the cost of production in fish farming is for feed alone, with majority of the fish farmers depending on ready made fish feed which are mostly imported . The high naira-dollar exchange rate has affected the cost of importing this feeds which in return amount to a huge increase in the sales price of the feeds. Even the ready made in Nigeria feed are also expensive as they also import some of their raw material like fish meal from abroad coupled with increase in power tarriff/gas,increase in cost of production ,increase in cost of logistics and many more.

Although efforts are on going by different association of fish farmers in different states to increase the sales price of fish at the farm gate but even when you consider the prices proposed by this organisations and the cost of this ready made feeds in the market especially the imported ones then one will say it is a case of monkey dey work baboon dey chop. Imagine a foreign feed that use to sale for N5000/15kg bag now selling for N11500 /15kg bag that is more than 100% increase in the price and the new proposed price for table size fish that use to sell for N480-500/kg is now N700, that is obviously less than 50% increase in the sales price of fish at farm gate.
Yet the market women are not willing to buy at the newly proposed price by the farmers,hence many farmers not restocking after harvest and even those who refuse to give up will stock less than half of what they harvested in other for them to be able to feed their new stock adequately.

But tough times calls for tough measures, even in the midst of all these, i tell you its a good time to venture into fish farming. You only need two things to survive in the business at this time , they are; cutting your cost of production and adding value to your harvest.

First let us talk about cutting cost of production, how do you cut your cost of production with the increase in cost of feed in the market? the answer is formulate your own fish feed. If not from fingerlings to table size then start formulating your own feed from jumbo or when they start picking 4mm foreign feed to table size depending on the type of local feed you are using (i.e floating or sinking). To formulate your own feed you have to understand aquaculture nutrition. The materials for formulating fish feeds are mostly gotten from factory/industrial waste . The materials can be classified into two classes namely macro ingredient and micro ingredients

to be continue.....

Bros come and continue this topic, i have been waiting for a chance at this for some time now!

Macro ingredients are the major feed ingredients and consist of about 98% of the Feed compound. It is further divided into three namely starch/carbohydrate, protein and lipid.

Examples of starch: maize,whole wheat,wheat flour, cassava flour,biscuit(factory waste),gala (factory waste) custard powder,semolina,rice bran etc % of starch should be between 15-30% depending on the type of feed (sinking or floating), energy requirement for the fish you are compounding the Feed for ,binding capacity of the starch available at your disposal etc

Examples of protein: soybean meal (sbm), groundnut cake (gnc), bdg,feather meal,blood meal,fish meal,chicken meal, maggot meal,pkc, sesame seed meal, cottonseed meal etc the protein is also divided into plant and animal protein with the animal protein having more crude protein than the plant protein and are always more expensive.% of protein should be between 65-85 % depending on the crude protein of the you want to compound and the crude protein of the material available at your disposal.

Examples of lipid: soya oil,cattle fat,fish oil,groundnut oil,palm oil,rapeseed oil etc % of lipid should b between 3-7% of your feed compound depending on the type of feed (i.e floating or sinking) and also the age/stage at which your fish are.

Thanks for this, my question is how do you make the same feed, some floating and the other not?

Meanwhile, as the story continue don't forget to get best Juveniles in town at affordable prices from Heroes and Worths Nigeria Enterprises Ilorin. Contact Dare on 08066401947.

If you are in Abuja and in need of local floating feeds with guaranteed results at a cheaper rate, you can contact through email for more details

Following

sparko1:
Thanks for this, my question is how do you make the same feed, some floating and the other not?

floating your feed will depend on the machine used. Usually extruders are for both floating feed and sinking feed while pelletizers are for sinking feed. Although some factors have to b considered before your feed can be floated even with the extruder

Micro ingredients: these are your feeds additives that seems minor in terms of % but are very essential in compounding a very good an healthy feed for your fish. I call them small but mighty, because a feed lacking any of them at the right proportion can be catastrophic to your fish farming business.
These are the vitamins and minerals that are added to our fish feed to make them a balance diet for our fish. Examples are lysine,methionjne,fish premix, vitamin c,enzymes,toxin binder,dcp , bone meal etc. They are usually added to supplement the macro materials that are lacking them,for example blood meal has crude protein usually between 78-82% and very rich in lysine and low in methionine.

Etranshub:
floating your feed will depend on the machine used. Usually extruders are for both floating feed and sinking feed while pelletizers are for sinking feed. Although some factors have to b considered before your feed can be floated even with the extruder

Thanks for the reply and post, now how do we get the machine to make this feed, and you said some factors needs to be considered for it to be successful. Mind explaining what you mean?

Machines for floating and sinking feeds are available both locally and internationally. Extruders are quite expensive compared to pelletizers.

sparko1:

Thanks for the reply and post, now how do we get the machine to make this feed, and you said some factors needs to be considered for it to be successful. Mind explaining what you mean?

Still on cutting your cost of feed, there is still a lot to learn on how to compound your fish feed but with the little said above and the help of an animal nutritionist/your local feed mill one can compound quality fish feed.

With that in place the next thing is to identify the type of harvest you want to have i.e do you want to harvest table size fish (500g-above) or melange (foldable -500g). It is important to decide this before stocking your pond at all because the approach and management of the two are different.

NB: ensure you stock quality seeds for failure to do that, the particular stock has started to fail already

Table size: it takes minimum of 4 months from fingerlings to table size with proper management practice which includes quality water management (depending on type of pond system), stocking density (it's lower for table size than melange per pond), proper sorting in due time etc. It's advisable to start feeding your fish with at least a bag of 1.5mm and a bag of 2 and 3mm each per 1000 fingerlings before you start compounding your own feed. At this point they will be getting ready to pick 4mm foreign feed back should be about 4-5 weeks old in your pond.

This also is the best time to do you first sorting and ensure that the Feed you are going to compound is very palatable and have a crude protein of not less than 42% and very rich in animal protein especially fish meal. This is because your fish at this stage will start eating a lot and to attain table size they grow very well between the 5th week and 12th week.

You can then drop the crude protein to 40% at between 8-10th week and also reduce the fish meal to reduce the cost of feeding. From the 12th week,the type of feed needed by your fish is a weight adding feed and .But always make sure that the Feed you compound is palatable and ensure you always feed your fish to satiation.

NB: fish farming is a garbage in garbage out business and there is no short cut to success. For table size if your target is 1 tonne just buy 1000seed or there about and feed them 1ton of feed at least. With quality seed and other management practices in place then success is assured. In my next post I will use the example of 1000 seed, 1000kg of feed and 4 months as a case study of the above table size farming just to let you see how you can cut cost with samples of feed formaulae and costing

Men you are good!

case study using 1000 seeds of post fingerlings: This example is from a practical experience from my last table size harvest though the batch was for 4000 seeds of post fingerlings but i am breaking the result down into 1000 seeds for better understanding therefore every input from the actual result will be divided by 4 or let us say 25%

1000 seeds of average weight of 8 grams at 10naira/seed price is N10,000 total weight is 8000grams (8kg)

1 bag of 1.5mm coppens price was N6500 then weight 5kg
2 bags ala-aqua (2 and 3 mm 1 bag of each) price was N5700/bag N11,400 then weight 30kg

they finished the above feed after week 5 then we switched to our own 3mm local floating feed. this is to prepare them for our 4mm local feed because after sorting our 4mm local feed will be difficult to pick for the smaller batch,. they were sorted into 3 different sizes at this point. we compounded an 100kg/1000 seeds ,3mm local floating feed.

local 3mm feed floating 100kg (week 6- feeding twice a day

formula
sbm 15kg,gnc 15 kg, maize 10, feather meal 5kg, hydrolysed blood 5kg, 72% fish meal (999) 30kg, dcp 2kg, flour 15kg,lysine 0.15,methionine,0.15, vit c 0.2,toxin binder 0.1,cattle fat 3kg . total cost for the 100kg then was N33,000 .
Note that the cost of the above is just for the materials alone as we compound our own feed in our feed mill. (feed mill machineries and cost is a topic for another day) .Also the fish meal is the most expensive material per kg and was N750 per kg then (about 4 months ago) but sells for N1000 per kg today.


local 4mm feed floating 400kg(week 8-12) feeding twice a day

formula
sbm 80kg,gnc 60kg, maize 40kg, feather 20kg, pkc 25kg, floour 60kg,blood meal 20kg, 72% fish meal 80kg, dcp 8kg, (lysine ,methionine,vit c and toxin binder same as for 3mm local above but times 4) total cost for 400kg was N110,000

local 6mm floating 400kg (week 12-15) feeding twice a day to satiation

formula
sbm 65kg,gnc 60kg, maize 50kg,feather meal 15kg,rice bran 30kg,pkc 25kg, flour 50kg,blood meal 15kg, 65% fish meal 80kg,dcp 8kg ,molasses 5kg,cattle fat 5kg(micro ingredients remain the same) total cost for 400kg was N86,000

local 6mm floating 200kg 9week 15-18) feeding once in a day to satiation

formula
sbm 30kg,gnc 35kg, maize 25kg,blood meal 10,feather 10kg, rice bran 15kg,pkc 25kg,flour 25kg, 65% fish meal 25kg,dcp 4kg,molasses 4kg,cattle fat 3kg, (micro ingredients remain the same) total cost for 200kg was N36500

Total money spent on feed only per 1000 seeds = 6500+11400+33,000+110,000+86000+36500=N283,000 for feed only

Note: The cost of the feed above would have been a little higher if we are not compounding the feed in our own feed mill

in my next post i will give you the total cost of production and amount of sales at harvest, i will also give you the total weight and we will also calculate the FCR of that batch of fish. keep in mind that the FCR does not depend on the feeds used only but also on other management factors.

The prices of those feeds materials has skyrocket by more than 25%
I wonder what the government is doing to cushion the effect of this historic inflation on farmers
Moreover, i think the use of foreign fishmeal has to be discouraged and protein alternatives such as local fishmeal, bloodmeal, feather meal, etc should be encouraged so as to reduce cost.

Thanks for making this as simple as can be. Easy to understand. #Following

yes you are right the prices of feed materials has really gone up but so is the price of fish because then i sold table size for 550/kg but now it sells for 700/kg.....72% fish meal can be substituted with local fish meal like clupid which some of their cp ranges between 40-72% but their % composition will increase in the formula depending on the cp of fish meal used. blood and feather are very reach in protein but not palatable and can not be used more than 8% of your formula to be on a safer side and to also produced a very good and palatable feed for your fish since you dont have access to some special attractant that big feed millers in the western world make use of

fm7070:
The prices of those feeds materials has skyrocket by more than 25%
I wonder what the government is doing to cushion the effect of this historic inflation on farmers
Moreover, i think the use of foreign fishmeal has to be discouraged and protein alternatives such as local fishmean, bloodmeal, feather meal, etc should be encouraged so as to reduce cost.

you are always welcome

vickychuk:
Thanks for making this as simple as can be. Easy to understand. #Following

sorry i have been very busy with alot of work on and off the farm lately preparing fir the Christmas harvest and many more.

At the point of harvest, we have already fed 1135kg of fish per 1000 seeds.

total weight was 980kg with 3 diffrent sizes of table size 1(700g and above) table size 2 (500g-700g) and melange which we sold to our self and moved to the processing unit.

table size 1 400kg * 550naira =220,000
table size 2 270kg *500 naira=135,000
melange 310*450=139,000

total sales =220,000 +135,000+139,000 = 494,000

cost of seed (1000 pieces) =10,000 post fingerlings , cost of feed 283,000, management and miscelenous (e.g cost of fuel water pumping for a period of 4 months etc) 50,000 . Total =343,000

Profit =494,000-343,000 = 151,000 naira on 1000 seeds.

Nb; the profit margin is this high only because we didnt calculate the cost of compounding the feeds and that is because we have a feed mill and the generate is usually on for other works on the farm (fabrication works and others) so its easy for us to make thier feed when ever there is need for it at no cost . But even with the cost of production of the feed one will surely make profit because the cost of producing one tonne of floating feed will be 50,000 at 50/kg for extruding and drying.

Thanks for making this so simple.
But please,if I may ask how do you take care of cannibalism?

Cannibalism is inevitable but can be minimise to a low level by sorting properly at the right time.

bizitex:
Thanks for making this so simple.
But please,if I may ask how do you take care of cannibalism?

Etranshub:
Cannibalism is inevitable but can be minimise to a low level by sorting properly at the right time.

When is the right time like time frame
Thank you

Etranshub:
floating your feed will depend on the machine used. Usually extruders are for both floating feed and sinking feed while pelletizers are for sinking feed. Although some factors have to b considered before your feed can be floated even with the extruder

Kindly enlighten me the factors needs to be considered
Bless you for giving

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RM6WlRNS3Y

This video was taken at exactly 3months of stocking this particular pond in March 18 2017,our target is to take them to five months since we want an average of 1kg from this particular batch.


For your local quality fish feed (Magnificent fish feed both floating and sinking) kindly contact us at Bethsaidal farms and Agro Allied. Contact Michael On 08167477947. Minimum order quantity is 500kg and we extrude only 4,6 and 8mm for floating. 2,3,4 ,6and 8mm for sinking.


Also we offer extruding services for both floating and sinking where you bring your feed materials and we extrude for you. Location is km 40 lagos-abeokuta Rd abule-oko bus stop ogun state.

Factors that needs to be considered includes % inclusion of starch in your formula, % lipid that is permissible for a feed formulation to float relative to a particular temperature that will not kill in nutrient of the feed ingredients and also % water /moisture to be added to the feed formulation.

Forex2020247:


Kindly enlighten me the factors needs to be considered
Bless you for giving

Please where can I mill local floating feeds in Lagos?
You wish your local was closer, thanks for your great contributions.

Etranshub:
sorry i have been very busy with alot of work on and off the farm lately preparing fir the Christmas harvest and many more.

At the point of harvest, we have already fed 1135kg of fish per 1000 seeds.

total weight was 980kg with 3 diffrent sizes of table size 1(700g and above) table size 2 (500g-700g) and melange which we sold to our self and moved to the processing unit.

table size 1 400kg * 550naira =220,000
table size 2 270kg *500 naira=135,000
melange 310*450=139,000

total sales =220,000 +135,000+139,000 = 494,000

cost of seed (1000 pieces) =10,000 post fingerlings , cost of feed 283,000, management and miscelenous (e.g cost of fuel water pumping for a period of 4 months etc) 50,000 . Total =343,000

Profit =494,000-343,000 = 151,000 naira on 1000 seeds.

Nb; the profit margin is this high only because we didnt calculate the cost of compounding the feeds and that is because we have a feed mill and the generate is usually on for other works on the farm (fabrication works and others) so its easy for us to make thier feed when ever there is need for it at no cost . But even with the cost of production of the feed one will surely make profit because the cost of producing one tonne of floating feed will be 50,000 at 50/kg for extruding and drying.