Fish growth performance in ponds integrated with poultry farm and fertilized with goat manure: a case in Ethiopian Rift Valley

Abstract

Extensive fish farming is expanding among farmers in Ethiopia where integration with other system is opting to combat the limiting fish feed supply. This experiment was conducted in earthen ponds to evaluate fish growth performance in pond integrated with poultry farm (T2) against fish growth in goat manure fertilized pond (T1) without feed supplement. Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and carp (Cyprinus carpio) poly-culture was used. The size of fish at stocking for O.niloticus and C.carpio were32.0±7.51 g and 13.1±2.81 g at density of 1.5 and 0.6 m-2 respectively. Fish were weighed individually at harvest and the average weight of the two groups were compared in independent sample t-test for both species separately. The O.niloticus significantly (p<0.05) higher average final weight of 174.2±40.8 g at a faster daily growth rate (DGR) of 0.75 g.day-1 inT2 than in T1 with 80.0±15.8 g final weight at DGR of 0.25g.day-1 during the culture period of 190 days. Similarly, C.carpio attained a significantly higher (p<0.05) average final weight of 277.1±33.79g at a rapid DGR of 1.8g.day-1 in T2 than in T1, which attained average final weight of 55.0±15.6 g atDGR of 0.28 g.day-1 during 150 days culture period. Hence, integrating fish pond with poultry farm results in faster fish growth rate which can be used as a good option to solve the feed problem facing extensive fish farms in Ethiopia.