fingerlings production

Fingerling Production Culture practices for fingerling
production are relatively
standardized across the industry,
especially when compared to the
wide variety of production
strategies used to grow food-sized catfish. Fry grow faster when
stocked at lower densities but
more space is required to grow
larger fingerlings at lower
densities. Stocking rate is there fore
a compromise between benefits of producing large fingerlings for
foodfish growout and the
economics of producing more small
fingerlings in less space. Fish are
fed a manufactured feed and
grown to fingerling size (3 to 8 inches long) over a 5 to 10 month
period. Fish are either allowed to
continue growing in their original
nursery ponds or are harvested
and transferred to other ponds for
growout to stocker-sized fish of 0.1 to 0.25 pounds or to food-sized fish
of 1.2 to 2.5 pounds. It is important to fertilize nursery
ponds so that they contain
abundant natural foods to promote
growth until the fry are large
enough to switch to manufactured
feeds. A finely ground feed should be offered once or twice daily to
train fish to accept the feed. As the
fish grow, feed particle size is
increased. A month or so after
stocking, the fish (now called
fingerlings) are fed once or twice daily to satiation, using a small
floating pellet with 32 to 35
percent crude protein. Because fingerling populations are
particularly susceptible to
infectious diseases, disease
management takes on added
importance in this stage of
production. Survival of catfish fry to fingerlings varies greatly from
pond-to-pond depending on the
initial condition of the nursery
pond, losses to bird predation, and
the incidence of infectious diseases.
Average survival from fry stocking to fingerling harvest in excess of 60
percent across all ponds on the
farm is considered to be very
good.
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