Effects of Phase-Feeding Decreasing Levels of Dietary Protein on Growth and Diet Utilization

• Main Authors: Of The Red Drum, Sciaenops Ocellatus, Eric S. Thoman, D. Allen Davis, Connie R. Arnold
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Red drum; Sciaenops ocellatus
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.570.6944; http://www.ag.auburn.edu/~davisda/publications/publication_files/p43.pdf

ABSTRACT. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate phase-feed-ing strategies on growth and nutrient retention of red drum, Sciaenops ocellatus. The first experiment was conducted over a 17-week period, uti-lizing sub-adult (initial mean weight, 70.8 g/fish) red drum. Treatments included three fixed-feeding regimes in which the fish were offered diets containing either 44, 40 or 36 % protein throughout the growth trial (F44, F40, F36, respectively) and two phased-feeding regimes. The phased-feeding regimes included feeding the 44 % protein diet the first 8 weeks after which the fish were switched to the 40 (P44/40) or 36 % (P44/36) protein diets. At the conclusion of the experiment, final mean weights ranged from 592.8 to 543.3 g/fish (F44 and F36, respectively). Although statistical differences were not found in final weights (P = 0.1015) of the fish, percent weight gain was significantly reduced as the protein content