Effects of frequency and period of feeding on growth and feed utilisation in two Asian catfishes, Pangasius bocourti (Sauvage, 1880) and Pangasius hypophthalmus (Sauvage, 1878)

Feeding to satiation in P. bocourti, resulted in higher growth with increased meal frequency. However, growth performance of two-meal or three-meal feeding was not significantly different at all. Moreover, feeding three meals a day led fish to consume a relatively higher amount of feed than fish administered two meals a day. When compared feed intake of the feeding at 12:00 to those of the feeding at 17:00, P. bocourti tends to take more food at 17:00 feeding, even though both feedings had the same interval between meals. It is obvious that besides feeding frequency, feeding time is an important factor affecting increased feed intake in P. bocourti when they were subjected to feed to satiation. When fed an equal fixed ration, P. bocouni and P. hypophthalmus had growth performance and feed efficiency which did not alter so much with increased meal frequency. However, one-meal feeding in the morning resulted in a lower growth and reduced feed utilisation than multiple feeding treatments. The reduced growth and lower feed utilisation here were apparently caused by feeding period rather than by frequency effect, since one-meal feeding during the night gave the same growth and feed efficiency as other feeding regimes in the night-time. Therefore, feeding in early morning resulted in lower feed intake and reduced assimilation efficiency as well. Moreover, feeding period during the night exhibits a higher growth and better feed efficiency than diurnal feeding in both species. Increased meal frequency and nocturnal feeding of an equal fixed ration usually resulted in a relatively higher fat deposition in both species with a higher adipose-somatic and hepato-somatic index. When combined data of feeding during the day and during the night, it showed that continuous feeding in P. bocourti and P. hypophthalmus led to a significantly lower growth performance and reduced feed efficiency than fractionated feeding. In addition, when fed a continuous regime, P. bocourti had a significantly higher coefficient of variation of final weight than other fractionated feedings.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Hung, Le Thanh, Nguyen Anh Tuan, Lazard, Jérôme
Format:	conference_item biblioteca
Language:	eng
Published:	IRD
Online Access:	http://agritrop.cirad.fr/595305/ http://agritrop.cirad.fr/595305/1/ID595305.pdf
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