A STUDY ON INTEGRATED DUCK-FISH AND GOAT-FISH PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

T.K. Mukherjee, S. Geeta, A. Rohani and S.M. Phang
Institute of Advanced Studies
University of Malaya
59100 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Experimental studies of integrated livestock-fish production have been conducted during the last six years in three fish ponds (control, duck-fish and goat-fish) stocked with different kinds of fish in different years.

In general, the duck-fish integrated pond produced the highest fish yield in 3 different experiments. This was due to the highest algal growth in the pond. This pond also recorded the highest values on conductivity, total residue, chlorophyll-a, BOD and COD.

This paper concentrates on the livestock and fish productivity, and the water quality of the ponds. Both the duck-fish and goat-fish systems are shown to be economically feasible; the duck-fish system gives better profit because of higher fish yield. Growth rate of the ducks and goats in the integrated system was found to be comparable to mono-cultural systems (goats/ducks). The water quality of the integrated ponds was also found to be normal.

An extended model of the existing integrated system shows that the efficiency of the biological system is very important. Computer simulated integrated production systems' results further strengthen the above postulation.

INTRODUCTION

Livestock-fish integration maximises food production and economic return per unit area of land. Its main benefit comes from the conversion of livestock wastes (faeces, urine, stall/penwashing, spilled animal feed) into protein. More important is the indirect fertilization effects, livestock wastes entering the pond thus enchancing microbial and plankton production which contributed to fish nutrition. The pond also serves as a waste treatment system for the otherwise polluting manure (Edwards et al., 1988; Schroeder, 1980).

China has long standing human-livestock-crop-fish production systems using well developed methods of waste recycling (Delmendo, 1980). This Chinese practice, at least some components of it, has generated much interest in other parts of the world. Literature on integrated production systems from other countries e.g. Thailand, Taiwan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Israel, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Hungary and the United States are available (Geeta, 1988; Rohani, 1991).

In Malaysia, although the interest is waning, integrated farming is still carried out by small farmers using farm wastes. A few trials on the integration of poultry and polyculture of fish and prawn were conducted by Mohd et al., (1983). The average fish and prawn yields in their trials were 1485.75 kg/ha, 1172.68 kg/ha and 1478.15 kg/ha from chicken-fish, duck-fish and chicken/duck-fish systems respectively (Mohd. et al., 1983). Case studies in Malaysia (Tan and Khoo, 1980) showed that the introduction of fish production into a pig farm in the state of Perak increased annual net income of the farmers by 43%. However, there are very few studies reported on the stocking density required for each type of integration, the water quality, supplementary feeding and incidence of diseases.

The present paper is a summarised report of a few experiments involving duck-fish and goat-fish trials in experimental ponds and tanks. The objectives of these experiments were:

1. To assess the potential of duck and goat manure as fertilizers for fish ponds,
2. To monitor the effect of manure on physical and chemical changes in the pond water and fish growth,
3. To evaluate the performance of duck broilers on deep littered floors and in slated-floor pens built on top of a pond,
4. To assess and discuss the economics and feasibility of the livestock-fish integrated systems, and
5. To build an extended model for determining biological production coefficients and energy efficiency in the control and integrated systems.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Experiment 1 (Period: July 1985 - April 1986)

Integration, as practised here, is the combined culture of fish and goats in Pond 1, and of fish and duck in Pond 2. The average pond dimensions are given in Table 1.

Two goat sheds over Pond 1, each approximately 14 m² were used for this experiment, each holding 10 growing goats. These goats were fed with pellet composed of agro-industrial feed ingredients (Mukherjee, 1984). The duck pen adjacent to Pond 2 contained 50 broiler ducks of different breeds in a series of 4 trials. The goatdung was allowed to deposit in Pond 1 and become a source of fish feed. The duck pen adjacent to the pond contained 50 broiler ducks of different breeds in a series of 5 trials of 8 weeks each. They were supplied with 50% of their average daily feed requirements. Ducks were released into the pond for between 6–8 hours to fetch most of their feed requirements from the duckweeds and plankton growing in Pond 2. Additional feed consisting of 20 – 50 gm/head of broiler mash was provided to the ducks.

Table 1. Average Pond Dimensions.

Growth and carcass data of grass carps and big head carps reared till 9 months of age in the integrated ponds (stocking density: 3000 fish/ha) were compared.

Experiment 2 (June 1987 - March 1988)

A polyculture system comprising of big head carp, patin (Pangasius sutchi), Jelawat and grass carp in a 1:4:4:2 ratio and a stocking density of 3,750 fish/ha was used. Supplementary feeding was with Napier grass (25–50 kg per pond/day).

Growth, mortality and carcass composition (c.c) traits in fish were measured. Methods of c.c analysis have been described (Geeta, 1988).

Before the commencement of this experiment, 4 duck pens were built on top of the pond with netted fencing around the pens, so that the ducks can swim within the fenced area. 160 ducks were cultured in each trial consisting of 7 – 9 weeks. Weekly body weights and mortality were recorded. Water quality analysis (pH, temperature, conductivity, DO, BOD, COD, ammoniacal nitrogen, orthophosphate, chlorophyll-a, residue and phytoplankton identification and count) were made once in every fortnight. In addition, measurements of primary productivity, light penetration and alkalinity were also made.

Experiment 3 (December 1988 - November 1989)

The design of this experiment and the parameters measured were more or less the same as in Experiment 2, except it also included a control pond (dimension: area - 2230 m², average depth. - 60 m) where only fish were grown with similar stocking density (Rohani, 1991). A polyculture fish production system with red tilapia (O. niloticus x O. mossambicus), big head carp and grass carp, was used in the ratio of 7:1:1. The stocking density in each pond was 4807 fish/hectare.

The pond experiments (2 and 3) were extended to experiments in tanks for detailed measurements on algal growth and more frequent measurements on early growth rate. However, this paper does not include the result of tank experiments.

Table 2. Means and standard errors of certain traits in goats.

F₁ = Local × German Fawn

Table 3. Duck broiler growth (g) on deep litter floor and in an integrated pond.

* Local Java ducks; other records were from Pekin.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Experiment 1

Means and standard errors of certain traits of male goats kept in the integrated pond area and in the breeding herd (Table 2) showed no significant (P < 0.05) differences between measurements in the two different production systems. This was expected.

Table 3 reveals body weights of ducks in the integrated system as well as the deep litter system practised at an earlier period in the University farm. Ducks in the deep litter system were heavier than the same breed group of ducks in the integrated system but were quite inferior in feed efficiency when based only on the concentrate given to both the groups. This suggests availability of abundant feed resources for ducks in the integrated pond.

Table 4 gives a comparative rate of growth of two species of fish in two ponds. A 30–40% increase in growth rate was obtained when fish farming was integrated with duck farming, compared to its integration with goat farming. This was due to the higher nitrogen and energy content of the duck faeces. Dung is first acted upon by heterotrophic grow. For the growth of the autotrophic microorganisms, carbon dioxide, water and light energy are required. Dressing percentage and growth performance of grass carp were superior to big head carp.

Experiment 2 and 3

Characterization of dung

Table 5 shows the manure production (g dry wt /animal/day) and some chemical analysis of the dung in the two experiments.

The amount of manure produced by goats was approximately the same as that obtained for feedlot sheep by Taiganides (1983). The chemical value for duck manure was a bit lower than the value of chicken manure, given by Woynarovich (1980) and Edwards (1983).

The chemical characteristics of the manure in the two different studies differed slightly. This was perhaps due to total live weight, age and feed characteristics. Nitrogen content in duck dung is expected to be higher because of the higher crude protein content of the duck feed. Goat dung however had higher potassium content since the goats were fed with more roughage and vegetative plant parts which contain higher potassium levels than grains (Taiganides, 1978).

Since the C/N ratio was lower in the duck dung, the higher nitrogen content is available as fertilizer for the duck-fish integrated pond. Similarly, the higher BOD/COD ratio in pond 2 indicates a greater potential for the duck dung to be biodegraded faster. Pond 2 also shows higher chlorophyll-a content.

Table 4. Average growth and other parameters of fish in fish-duck and fish-goat integrated ponds.

Table 5. Manure production and some chemical analysis of the dung.

Fish production

Table 6 shows the fish production in Experiments 2 and 3. Fish production in pond 2 was significantly higher than in the second experiment, and pond 1 and 3 (control) in the third experiment. This was due to higher growth rate and lower mortality in pond 2.

Fish production depends on both the availability of food and environmental quality of the pond, and the environment in general. In a fertilized pond, the fish depends on plankton. Analysis of the gut contents in both experiments showed that algal cells contributed to about 90% of the total contents showing the contribution of algae to fish production. Annual production data of integrated projects (Table 7) has been presented for comparison with present data. Our data on duck-fish integrated pond was comparable to most other results except in cases where supplemental concentrate feeding was made.

Water quality of the ponds

Some of the important water quality measurements of Experiment 2 are shown in Table 8. In Table 9, mean semi-diurnal measurements of pH, dissolved oxygen and temperature from three occasions are shown. Similar trends were also observed in Experiment 3.

Mean pH values of both ponds were well within the same range (5–9). The semi-diurnal study however showed increasing pH values beyond the safe range during the afternoon.

The significantly lower dissolved oxygen content was due to higher loading rate in Pond 1. The semidiurnal dissolved oxygen rate was also lower in Pond 2. The heavy goat dung pellets sink and accumulate in the pond bottom where they are slowly degraded. Consequently, undesirable products like hydrogen sulphide, methane, carbon dioxide and ammonia are produced.

The higher dissolved oxygen content in Pond 2 is probably one of the factors contributing to higher fish production.

The ammoniacal-nitrogen and orthophosphate content did not differ significantly between ponds.

In the control pond, dissolved oxygen content was higher than the other two ponds, orthophosphate values were lower and the other parameters not significantly different from the other two ponds.

Economic analysis

A short term analysis (1 year) for smallholders' ponds involving all fixed costs and variable costs was made. This cost also included pond construction, animal house and paddle wheels. Return to capital is only 69.2% for the first year. This covers capital investment as well as the aerators. Paddle wheels are not necessary in some rural areas in Malaysia. If ponds are not overfertilized, dissolved oxygen level would remain high, which will make the installation of paddle wheels redundant. By doing this the farmer's return to capital in the first year could be 58 % (Appendix 1).

Table 6. Fish production in ponds after 9 months.

Table 7. Annual production data of integrated aquaculture/agriculture waste utilization projects (after several authors).

Table 8. Water quality in the earthern ponds.

Table 9. Mean and standard error of diurnal variation of temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen.

Table 10. Effect of breed and environment on feed energy requirement and ME utilization of fish and ducks.

G: Good environment
P: Poor environment

Table 11. Comparative food net energy/feed GE % in various species and in an integrated scheme.

Avg.: Average of breeds and environments
(G): Good environment

Energy efficiency

A deterministic model (Hirooka and Yamada, 1985) developed for beef cattle and slightly modified to suit the present experiments (Mukherjee, 1985) was used to estimate feed intake of goats, duck and fish, based on the population data obtained from the University farm. A major purpose of developing this model was to estimate feed energy requirement of various animals at their current levels of turnoff. Another was to estimate change in energy requirements, turnoffs and production coefficients (growth, mortality, slaughter age).

ME utilization was considerably higher in fish than in goats and ducks due to unaccountability of feed energy produced from the pond. Only a rough estimate of faeces produced in the goat and duck shed could be calculated for energy utilization. However, the total dynamic of energy conversion in the pond is necessary for accurately assess the feed energy available to the fish.

The ability to utilize additional feed energy from the pond by fish and ducks have made these two species more energy efficient than goats. Efficiency of grass carp was higher than big head carp and efficiency of Pekin ducks was better than Java ducks (Table 10). When the energy efficiency (EE) of the integrated production system was calculated, it was found to be better than the EE of goats, ducks and fish cultured separately (Table 11).

REFERENCES

AIT (1986). Asian Institute of Technology Research Report No. 198, 78 pp.

Barash, H., Plavnik, K. and R. Moav, (1982). Aquaculture 27: 129–140.

Chen, T.P. (1980). In: Integ. Agri-Aquaculture Farming Systems, R.S. Pullin and Z.H. Shehandeh (eds), ICLARM Conf. Proc. 4, pp. 58–71.

Cruz, .M. and Z.H. Shehadeh, (1980). International Symposium on Biogas, Microalgae and Livestock Wastes, Taipei, Taiwan, 122 pp.

Delmondo, M.N. (1980). Integ. Agri-Aquaculture Farming Systems, ICLARM Conf. Proc. 4, pp. 59–71.

Edirisingle, U. (1985). Proc. Second Asian Conf. Rural Development, 4–7 Dec., 1985, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 706 pp.

Edwards, P. (1983). Proc. World Cong. Anim. Prod. 1: 273–281.

Edwards, P., R.S.V. Pullin and J.A. Gartner (1988). ICLARM Studies and Reviews 16, pp. 53.

Geeta, S. (1988). M. Phil. Thesis, Univ. Malaya., Malaysia, 197 pp.

Geeta, S., S.M. Phang and T.K. Mukherjee (1988). Proc. Ann. Meeting Mal. Soc. Anim. Prod., p. 4.

Hirooka, H. and Y. Yamada. Jap. J. Biotechn. Sci. 56(7): 557–565.

Little, D. and J. Muir (1987). A guide to integrated warm water aquaculture. Publication Section, U. Sterling. 58 pp.

Lovshin, K.L. et al., (1986). Int. Cent. for Aquacultural Research and Development, Series No. 33, pp. 1–47.

Mohd. Mustaffa, A.T. Tajuddin, Mohd. Hanif and Masri, S. (1983). International Conf. on Dev. and Management of Tropical Living Aquatic Resources, 2–5 Aug., 1983, UPM, Malaysia.

Mukherjee, T.K. (1984). Proc. 2nd Ann. Report, Goat Breeding Project, univ. Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, p. 7.

Mukherjee, T.K. (1985). Proc. 2nd Asian Conf. Technology for Rural Development, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, p. 13.

Olah, J., V.R.P. Sinha, S. Yoppan, S. Purushottam and S. Radheyshyam (1986). Aquaculture 58: 111–122.

Rohani, A. (1991). M.Phil. Thesis, Univ. Malaya, Malaysia, 179 pp.

Schroeder, G.L. (1980). ICLARM Conf. Proc. 4, pp. 73–86.

Schroeder, G.L., G. Wohlfrath, A. Alkon, A. Halvery and H. Kreuger (1990). Aquaculture 89: 219–229.

Taiganides, E.P. (1987). Int. Conf. Water Pollution, Quano, EAR. 315 pp.

Taiganides, E.P. (1983). Proc. World Cong. Anim. Prod. 1: 205–212.

Woynorovich, E. (1980). ICLARM Conf. Proc. 4: 129–134.

Appendix 1. Economic analysis of an integrated production system at University of Malaya.

Fixed costs (A):