Formulation of cheaper artificial feeds for shrimp culture: preliminary biochemical, physical and biological evaluation

Abstract

A compound shrimp diet was prepared making use of the locally available natural food stuffs, slaughter house products and factory by-products. The ingredients, viz: beef liver (discarded for human use on veterinary grounds), coconut oil cake, soya flour, mangroveleaves, and wheat flour, were analysed biochemically for their nutritive value. The formulated diet is in a dry pellet form. It was assessed experimentally for its physical stability and subsequently fed to various size groups of a palaeomonid prawn (@iLeptocarpus potamiscus@@) for biological evaluation. The results of the investigations suggest that beef liver meal and coconut oil cake are rich in protein and can be utilized in the formulation of aquatic diets. The diet is highly wate stable, consumable and assimilable. It should be tested upon both palaeomonid and penaeid prawns in further experiments