Hidden Truths About Catfish Business!!! - Business
I had to seek help from other farmers, but every farm I went to I
noticed they where all also running at loss.. That was when I decided
heading to songhai farms at benin repurblic.. At songhai I learnt all
what I was suppose to know concerning fish farming, from how to hatch(
spawning) to management, feed formulation and what have u..
I
came back full of wisdom and found out what I did and did not do for for
the failure of my farm.. First off if you have never started hatching
on your own,my brother u have not started yet..so I carefully built my
own hatching ponds and with what I learnt I gave it a shot and it was
successful, I nurtured them to fingerlings stage and I got over THIRTEEN
THOUSAND FINGERLING at my first try..
I selected the best 4000
fingerlings for stocking for the next 5 months and sold the rest.. Dis
is one aspect for the failure of fish farmers.. Most hatchery selects
the best (shooters)for themselves and sell runts to farmers, And we
constantly feed these runts without attaining a reasonable wieght
thereby loosing our hard earned money and waste our precious time..
IDENTIFYING RUNTS AS FINGERLINGS
If
u still buy fingerlings from other farms please my brother follow the
guidelines below so your investment does not go down the drain..
1. Only buy fingerlings from recommended farms, especially those who specialise in the production of fingerlings and juvenile..
2.
Runts head seems to be whitish in colour, their body is thinner and is
not proportionate in size to the head,they are like unfed children..
3. Buy fingerlings or juveniles only from farms who use male and female fishes (brood stock) equal to or above 1.5kg..Like I said earlier on I sold the remaining 9000 fingerlings which I
sold for 7 naira each and made 63000 naira hereby stocked the best 4000
(shooters) and I started raising them for the next 5 months..
Before
I stocked the pond I disinfected it with "BLAGDON ANTI FUNGAI AND
BACTERIA" by doing this u have clared the pond against any fungai or
bacteris present in the pond.. Sometimes u may stock and after a while
they start dieing due to an outburst of disease present in the pond, so I
advice all farmers to disinfect there pond using the afor-mentioned
drugs..
After two weeks of stocking I started to sort them into
sizes Big, medium and small.. My brother sorting is one essential
activity u MUST do to save ur investment.. If u don't sort only less
than half of your fish will grow well and be ready for sale when most
should be ready.. This is because its only the big and aggresive ones
that will be eating most of the time and they are usually less than half
of the entire stock you have in the pond.. But when u sort regularly
most of the fishes will be of regular size and they can compete with
themselves for food.. So they can all grow at the same pace.. PLEASE
DONT TAKE SORTING LIKELY..
Sequel to these I stocked my pond with
a thousand fish into four ponds ie I had four pond and stocked them
with a thousand fish in one pond to make up for the four pond (4000)..
One
other thing that makes us loose money is overstocking of your pond..
Your fishes will not grow.. Because the water gets polluted easily and
this will cause the dissolved oxygen to be depleted in the water.. And
when this takes place the fishes wount eat well their appetite for food
will be lost.. So I guess a farmer should measure his pond well before
stocking FEEDING YOUR FISH
You know feeding takes 70% of the total cost
and there are no cut corners in feeding your fish..I tell farmers that
"What you give to them that's what they will become" and that's a
fact.. I have seen farmers that give their fishes Eba and the likes for
them to gain weight, and its no surprise to me when they sell at a
loss..
As long as you have right fish (like shooteers) and u sort
and don't over stock my brother you can go ahead and feed them very
well.. Let me tell u one deep truth when u stock the right
fish(shooters) they can even eat less and yet grow bigger..
Now
there are all sort of feeds available in the market from
coppens,durante,multifeed,zeigler,aqua feed, ranan,vital feed etc.. When
I started back then I was using coppens and there was a time I even
bought a fake of it (coppens) but for some time now I have been using
zeigler and I must say that I prefer zeigler to coppens.. I know most
farmers will be raising eyebrow now but that's a pure fact.. Infact I
had a client that sells vale viva feed back then the company did an
experiment of coppens, zeigler,multi feed and durante, she told me that
ziegler came out top,but I wasn't suprised because I had done my own
finding too.. Coppens is just about the name, they are living on past
glory.. Don't get me wrong coppens is a very good feed but I find
zeigler to be the best feed what so ever..Now if you don't feed your fish regularly they will not grow .. And u
should know the size of feed you give to them at the right time..
Feeding should be three times a day but at the third month feed them
twice a day while ate the last month u full feed once a day..
At
the third month farmers tend to switch to local feed and they sort for a
good local feed... Back then I used local feed, I had a good
combination but I found out that most of the ingredient are adultarated,
especially the fish meal.. And fish meal is the main ingredient to
produce a good feed and for rapid growth.. Some farmers include blood
meal but I bet that majority of the so called blood meal are not they
are sometimes burnt tyre.. I know right now u may be wandering but yes
that's the truth..Pardon me to use broken english abeg "dis my leg don
waka because of this feed formulation wetin I see na only God know" Am
not saying there aint no good ingredient out there but most of them are
fake, and u feed your fish and realise that they don't grow as
expected..
So I stopped using local feed and
I deviced a
method that after three month I switch to VITAL feed.. If u compare the
cost of vital feed and the local feed we spend time and energy on its
not that big.. And truthfully vital feed is not an imported feed it is
made here in nigeria so to me vital feed is also a local feed.. Some
farmers may say we do local feed to reduce cost and I laugh at their
ignorance.. It is better to go straight to the point than cutting
corners and whereby you may still be cheated on the local feed.. When u
have a good fish its better you feed them with quality to harvest
quality..
CHANGE YOUR WATER
I have been to farms where
the water is so polluted and stinks.. I wonder how such farmers reason..
Its just like putting 20 people in a single room and u shut the door
and window what do u think will happen over time..
If u don't
change the water as at when due the enviroment of the fishes will be too
polluted to encourage good feeding.. The fishes urine,faeces and
dissolve excess feed pollute the water and they wount eat well or digest
the food because of polluted enviroment..