An integrated chicken-fish system in concrete ponds

Four treatments (in duplicate) were used to detennine the optimum combination ratio in the chicken-fish integrated system in 4 m2 concrete ponds. Treatment I (TI) consisted of a concrete pond integrated with one point-of-lay chicken while treatment 2 (T2) had two point-of-Iay chickens integrated over a concrete pond. Treatment 3 (T3), consisted of three point-of-lay chickens integrated over a pond and treatment 4 (T4) was the control and involved no integration. Each concrete pond was stocked with a poly-culture of Oreochromis niloticus and Clarias gariepinus in a ratio of 3:1. Compounded fish feed was used to feed the fish in T4 twice daily at 5% of their body weight while fish in TI. T2 and T3 fed on wet chicken manure and spilled chicken feed that fell directly into the ponds. The daily manure loading rate ranged from 55.80g in TIR2 (treatment l replicate 2) to 117.37 g in T3RI while spilled feed loading rate ranged from 2.52 in T2R2 to 9.27g in T3R2. The total number of eggs laid was 871 in 84 days. For C. gariepinus, fish in T4RI had the highest mean weight gain of all the treatments and TIRI, the lowest. T3R2 had the highest mean weight gain of all the integrated treatments. For O. niloticus fingerlings, fish in T4 which were fed compounded feed had the highest mean daily weight gain and while those in T1 had the lowest. T4RI fish had the highest mean weight gain while TIR2 fish had the lowest. Fish in T3 had the highest mean weight gain of all the integrated treatments followed by fish in T2. However, physico-chemical parameters were more adverse and survival was lower in T3 than in T2 and so a combination ratio of 20 fingerlings in a 4 m2 concrete tank integrated with two laying chickens (mean weight 1.93 kg) is recommended. This translates to 50 laying chickens/100 m2 concrete pond stocked with 500 fingerlings.

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