The effect of alternate‐day feeding on growth and feed conversion in Atlantic cod Gadus morhua

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effect of alternating feeding (Alt) compared with control being fed every day (Con) in the on‐growth face of Atlantic cod. Individually marked fish (198 and 98 in the Con and Alt groups, respectively) was sampled for weight and length on 6 occasions over a 15‐month period, where mean weight increased from 628 and 758 g to 2635 and 3041 g, for the Con and Alt groups, respectively. Feeding alternate day resulted in 13 percentage more weight gain in the alternating feeding group (2283 vs. 2007 g) and improved feed conversion ratio (FCR, 1.07) compared with control (FCR 1.45). The Alt group consumed significantly less feed (27%) compared with control. The results demonstrate that feeding costs can be drastically reduced without compromising biomass growth by using feeding on alternate days during the on‐growing period of Atlantic cod.

Alternate Day Feeding as a Cost-effective Strategy for Tank Culture of the Pacific Shortfin Eel Anguilla bicolor pacifica

“…During the rearing trial, eels fed on alternate days for 78 d consumed 0.54 kg of feed compared to almost 2 kg for those fed daily for 155 d. The reduction in total feed consumption in the ADF group while attaining a similar weight gain further supports the observed compensatory growth in this species. Improved feed use efficiency may be due to reduced feed waste through consumption of lower amounts of feed (Hezron et al 2019;Bjørnevik et al 2021). On the other hand, the poor growth, increased competition for feed, and mortalities could result from intermittent feeding (Abel-Hakim et al 2006) which were not observed in this study, particularly in the ADF group.…”

“…Feeding management strategies such as skip or alternate day feeding have been studied in a number of species such as Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus (Bolivar et al 2006;Cuvin-Aralar et al 2012), milkfish Chanos chanos (de Jesus-Ayson and Borski 2010), and in Atlantic cod Gadus morhua (Bjørnevik et al 2021). Such studies found that this feeding schedule resulted in comparable fish performance and lower feed conversion ratio compared to those fed daily.…”

Short-term starvation at different feeding regimes on appetite responses, feeding utilization and physiological indices, of red hybrid tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus × Oreochromis niloticus) fingerlings reared in brackish water

“…Confirmation of our observations, Bolivar et al [ 24 ] found that fish fed daily had higher growth but did not significantly differ with those fed alternate-day feeding (EOD), they reported that a significantly better FCR was obtained for fish fed EOD or on alternate days than for fish fed daily. In the same trend [ 25 ], found that, alternate-day feeding (EOD) group consumed significantly less feeding (27 %) compared with group that fed every day, while [ 26 ] pronounced that fish fed alternate-days solely had half of the days of feeding in contrast fish fed constantly and then FCR was once the exceptional with alternate-day feeding (EOD). Similar observations have been mentioned by Ref.…”

Multi-omics approach to study the dual effects of novel proteins on the intestinal health of juvenile largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) under an alternate feeding strategy

“…It is well known that growth performance is an essential criteria for evaluating fishmeal alternatives. Even though a great deal of research has been conducted on alternate feeding strategy in fish (10,11,19), the impacts of new proteins on the growth performance of fish under alternate feeding strategy have not been investigated. In the present research, a substantial decrease in growth performance was detected when comparing diets containing novel proteins to whole fish meal diet; nevertheless, the most surprising discovery was that the growth rate in the second 29 days outperformed the first 29 days.…”

“…Alternate feeding strategy is an effective method to conserve high-value or resource-limited feed ingredients. Some studies have extensively conducted for fish oil based diet substitution with terrestrially derived oil or plant-sourced oil diets without compromising fish fatty acid composition (10), fish growth performance (11), or their physio-biochemical performance (12,13) in Scophthalmus maximus, Gadus morhua, Dicentrarchus labrax, and Acanthopagrus schlegelii. These studies showed that using an alternate feeding strategy could reduce the use of fish oil.…”