The Effects of Manual, Time and Sound Feeding Systems on the Growth and Production of White Shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) in Semi-intensive Farming Systems in Ecuador..

Abstract

[EN] The objective of the current study was to analyze the performance of white shrimp fed using three feeding systems: manual, time feeders and sound feeders, in thirteen commercial semi-intensive farms in three areas of Guayas province (Ecuador) using 535 production lots during the period 2015~2017. The size of the ponds ranged between 3 and 23 hectares, with a depth of 1.2 m, in which the exchange of water was around 1 % a day. The initial weight of the shrimp was 0.04~0.29 g, and stocking density was around 10 shrimp per square meter. The three feeding systems used commercial diets with 35% protein content. The time feeder system gave a higher shrimp yield (1 631 kg/ha) than manual feeding (1 539 kg/ha) and the sound feeder system (1 483 kg/ha). The best results for survival were obtained with the manual system (61.7%) and the time feeder (62.9%) in comparison to sound feeder (57.0%). Current performance results with acoustic systems were lower than reported by other authors, probably because the number of feeders per hectare was low, reducing the accessibility of shrimp to feed, in fact daily feeding supplied was not improved as has occurred in other studies.