An integrated approach to poultry cum fish farming is carried out by Rangayya (1977) who is proud of his two-in-one poultry cum fish farm. The poultry house, built on a wooden platform erected in a pond had 1,600 birds kept in two-tire battery type cages provided with feed troughs and water channels. The droppings of the chickens fall straight into the pond, about 0.2 hectare in size, stocked with fingerlings which serve a field of about half hectare under para grass.
Rangayya estimated the net additional income from fish at Rs. 1,000 (US$ 130). He was convinced of the usefulness of the system to increase small farmers' income and said that his pond could irrigate more area under grass. The battery system makes maintenance and management easy and economical while it also helps in the production of ‘clean’ eggs.
The village of Gudlavalleru with 8,000 population produce 70,000 eggs a day and 10,000 litres of milk. It has two milk chilling centres and a poultry marketing ubcentre. The State Bank of India has financed about 75 poultry farms in the village and the bank has attracted over 1200 saving accounts from the farmers (The Hindu, June 24, 1977).
The live-weight process production or farm raised catfish in the United States for May Catfish totalled 1.8 million pounds. According to Newton and Merkowsky (1977), the total production for the year is estimated to be almost 10 million pounds (4.5 million kg). Farmers are obtaining 60–65 cents per pound.
Research on the fertilizing efficiency of chicken manure in fish ponds, either alone or in Combination with cattle manure, has been done by Banerjee et al. (1969), who observed that a combination of chicken and cattle manure worked better than the cattle manure alone in fertilizing nursery ponds. It has also been reported that poultry manure is a complete fertilizer, with the characteristics of both organic as well as inorganic fertilizers (Banerjee et al. (1979). Ray and David (1969) found that chicken manure produced a large population of rotifers quicker than cattle manure. A fish yield of 670 kg/ha/90 day has been reported by Banerjee et al. (1979), using poultry manure and no supplemental feeds.
In Indonesia, the Chicken-fish farms usually practice monoculture of Common carp or Java carp stocking with 1 to 3 cm fry and 10g fingerlings. The alternative is polyculture of common carp, tilapia, nilem carp and kissing goramy. No supplemental feeds are given. Examples of inputs and yields for chickens and fish are given in the tables (5) & (6) below:
| Water surface area (m2) | ||||
| 420 | 1,050 | 1,680 | ||
| Fish | ||||
| 1 | Inputs | |||
| labor | 6,000 | 10,000 | 18,600 | |
| fish seed | 20,000 | 15,000 | 12,000 | |
| seed | 15,000 | 30,000 | 7,500 | |
| Total(A) | 41,000 | 55,000 | 38,100 | |
| 2. | Output(B) | 57,240 | 90,000 | 90,000 |
| 3. | Net return (B - A) | 16,240 | 35,000 | 51,900 |
| 4. | Rate of return as a % of A | 40 | 64 | 136 |
| Mendong | ||||
| 1. | Inputs | |||
| field construction | 11,000 | 26,000 | 43,000 | |
| equipment | 2,750 | 3,500 | 3,000 | |
| labor | 11,700 | 21,000 | 16,800 | |
| seedlings | 800 | 2,000 | 3,200 | |
| fertilizer | 1,050 | 8,750 | 8,750 | |
| pesticides | - | - | 375 | |
| taxes | 420 | 1,050 | 1,680 | |
| Total(C) | 27,720 | 62,300 | 76,805 | |
| 2. | Output(D) | 60,000 | 117,750 | 134,400 |
| 3. | Net return (D-C) | 32,280 | 55,450 | 57,595 |
| 4. | Rate of return as a % of C | 116 | 89 | 75 |
| Fish + Mendong | ||||
| 1. | Total costs (A + C) | 68,720 | 117,300 | 114,905 |
| 2. | Total returns (B + D) | 117,240 | 207,750 | 224,400 |
| 3. | Total net returns | 48,520 | 90,450 | 109,495 |
| 4. | Total rate of return as a % of total costs | 71 | 77 | 95 |
Source: Pullin & Shehadeh, 1980
| Pond area (m2) | ||||
| 400 | 800 | 2,408 | ||
| Fish | ||||
| 1. | Inputs | |||
| pond construction | 880 | 22,000 | 44,000 | |
| labor | 7,200 | 168,000 | 30,000 | |
| fingerlings | 17,000 | 240,000 | 189,000 | |
| feed | 21,900 | - | - | |
| fertilizer | 10,600 | 1,800 | 8,100 | |
| taxes | 400 | 800 | 2,400 | |
| Total(A) | 57,980 | 432,600 | 273,500 | |
| 2. | Output (B) | 130,600 | 1,201,800 | 610,350 |
| 3. | Net return (B - A) | 72,620 | 769,200 | 336,850 |
| 4. | Rate of return as a % of A | 125 | 178 | 123 |
| Chickens | ||||
| 1. | Inputs | |||
| chicken house | 38,280 | 110,000 | 11,000 | |
| labor | 150,000 | 127,400 | 36,000 | |
| stocking | 48,000 | 525,000 | 82,500 | |
| feed | 985,500 | 1,521,450 | 40,590 | |
| medication | - | 19,200 | - | |
| Total (C) | 1,221,780 | 2,303,050 | 170,090 | |
| 2. | Output (D) | 1,773,000 | 3,585,000 | 247,500 |
| 3. | Net return (D - C) | 551,220 | 1,281,950 | 77,410 |
| 4. | Rate of return as a % of C | 45 | 56 | 46 |
| Fish + Chickens | ||||
| 1. | Total costs (A + C) | 1,279,760 | 2,735,650 | 443,590 |
| 2. | Total returns (B + D) | 1,903,600 | 4,786,800 | 857,850 |
| 3. | Total net returns | 623,840 | 2,051,150 | 414,260 |
| 4. | Total rate of return as a % of total costs | 49 | 75 | 93 |
It is estimated that each chicken produces about 40 g of excreta per day.
Fowler and Lock (1974) described the possibility of inclusion of poultry waste as a feed ingredient in catfish ration. Some farmers in Asia build poultry cages on a wooden platform above a fish pond, poultry feed together with spilled feed fall directly into the pond where it is consumed by the fish. This system is very practical, no cleaning of poultry cages is necessary, and poultry situated above the fish pond enjoy an excellent air circulation which has a significant cooling effect for laying birds which are particularly sensitive to heat stress. This system in terms of livestock waste management increases the profit derived from fish and totally eliminates the pollution problem. It is estimated that one laying hen will produce enough manure to generate about 6–8 kg/year of fish biomass. Manure derived from individual confined livestock species (annually) can support the following annual production range of fish biomass (Muller, 1980).
| Manure from | Fish biomass production (kg/year) | ||
| One dairy cow | 100 | – | 200 |
| One beef cattle | 90 | – | 160 |
| One sheep | 10 | – | 17 |
| One laying hen | 6 | – | 8 |
| One replacement bird | 4 | – | 5 |
| One broiler | 3 | – | 4 |
| One turkey | 7 | – | 8 |
The conversion ratio of manure to fish biomass is related to numerous factors, particularly the fish species, climatic conditions and pond water management.
It can be concluded that fish cultures are an excellent outlet, closing circularly integrated recycling systems without further pollution discharge. This is even more true when fish ponds can be switched over to cropping every second year, a system quite commonly used in Asia. This practice supports both high production of disease free fish and high crop yields.
In Alabama, Nerrie and Smitherman (1979) used pelleted chicken manure to feed tilapia stocked at approximately 10,000/ha. to 120 kg/ha/day of pelleted chicken manure was considered safe. Average fish production of 14 kg/ha/day resulted from using chicken manure, the pelleted manure supplemented with soybean and corn meals increased fish production to 22 kg/ha/day.
