| 1.What is an Extruded Fish Feed? |
| Extrusion is the conversion of raw ingredients into modified intermediate and finished products which are efficiently cooked in controlled process. Floating feeds are extrusion cooked and expanded 125 to 150% in volume. Hence the density will be reduced which causes the feed to float. |
| 2.What are the physical differences between a compressed pellet and an extruded pellet? |
| A compressed pellet is more dense in weight and sinks faster. It is ideal to feed to species like Carp that feed quickly often in a frenzy. The feed is highly palatable to fish and has a more attractant texture. An extruded pellet is normally less dense and more porous. This makes it slower sinking and can be made to float and so makes it more suitable to some species of fish. The porosity of an extruded feed is utilised to absorb large quantities of fat. This has become essential to the economic viability of extruded feed. A compressed pellet is much cheaper to produce than an extruded pellet and is gentler to the ingredients because it does not reach such a high temperature. |
| 3.What are the benefits of Extruded fish feed? |
| The beneficial effects of Extrusion include increased nutritive value by enhancing starch and Fat digestibility and reduction of anti-nutritional factors like the trypsin inhibitors. Fish farmers have proved that floating feed result in better feed conversion due to the fact that the feed consumption can be monitored and adjusted so that feed is not wasted. |
| 4.What is the quantity to feed the fish daily? |
| Many fish consume all feed in less than the specified time then it is an indication to the farmer that more feed can be given. If feed is left over in pond after the specified time from, then it is an indication that over feeding has occurred. |
| 5.How it is different from traditional feeding methods? |
| Indian fish culture is predominantly based on cultivating carps on an age-old traditional method that uses animal manures to generate natural food in ponds and this is supplemented with feed inputs derived from agricultural by-products. Use of formulated feed for fish cultivation is thus a sharp deviation from the existing traditional methods. |
