Under the current market conditions in Western Kenya, the economics of introducing integrated poultry (layers) and fish farming needs to be further explored. More productive strains of laying birds are available, however the actual cost of purchasing point-of-lay birds on the open market is currently prohibitive.
The production and sale of over 210,000 Clarias fingerlings weighing over 1.4 t is no mean achievement considering that the artificial reproduction of this species is new to Western Kenya and only began in the few months before the trial period described. What is clear, however, is that the use of large, well fertilized ponds and integrated farming is not the answer to improving the consistency of results when rearing C. gariepinus larvae to the fingerling stage. Feeding a composed feed gave much the same results.
Workers experienced in the field believe that the most significant influence on the survival of larval Clarias to the fingerling stage is predation, and frogs can do an enormous amount of damage (De Graaf et al (in press and pers.comm); Nugent, (pers.comm); Janssen, (pers.comm.). De Graaf et al (in press) found that surrounding small (100 m2) ponds with roofing sheets 0.8 m high effectively eliminated the frog population from the ponds, and the results, expressed as the number fingerlings /m2 were on average 6 times higher at harvest than when using unprotected ponds. Nugent (pers.comm) found that fingerling survival greatly improved when the larvae were placed in a very large hapa in the centre of a pond, again eliminating amphibian predation.
While Kibos fish farm does have its share of frogs, and the larger ponds should have decreased predation from this source, another major source of predation is undoubtedly the vast array and large numbers of pisciverous birds visiting the farm due to the proximity of Lake Victoria. It is not uncommon to find 10 different species and over 100 birds on the 2 ha farm at any one time, and they appear to have little difficulty catching fish in either large or small ponds. As all wildlife including birds are protected by law, some sort of pond protection is necessary.
If predation is the major factor, it would make more sense to concentrate future efforts on protecting the ponds from external predators. This is not economically feasible with the large Kibos ponds. Future efforts should be directed to using well protected, smaller ponds for rearing larval Clarias.
