AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BIOTECHNOLOGY, vol.10, no.25, pp.5048-5052, 2011 (SCI-Expanded)
This study investigated the effects of different feeding strategies on the growth, conditions and food conversion rate of young rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). The groups set up are as follows: a control group (Gc), which was fed every day for the week, a group with no feeding on Monday and Thursday (G(Mon-Thu)), a group with no feeding on Saturday and Sunday (G(Sat-Sun)), and a group that alternated feeding one day and no feeding the next (G(F-NF)). At the end of the study, the mean (+/-SD) weight and food conversion ratio of groups were found to be: 83.51 +/- 5.43 g and 1.09; 87.38 +/- 5.95 g and 1.14; 83.50 +/- 5.97 g and 1.15; and 76.66 +/- 4.56 g and 1.26, respectively. Group G(F-NF) showed significantly slower growth than the others, and it exhibited a higher food conversion ratio value than groups G(Mon-Thu) and G(Sat-Sun) (P<0.05). The condition factors of the groups were similar (P>0.05). This study showed that the two groups that did not feed for two days a week (G(Mon-Thu) and G(Sat-Sun)) did not exhibit negative growth performance, whether they were not fed on consecutive days or different days of the week, while group G(F-NF) exhibited negative growth performance.