ARTIFICIAL FEEDING 



1 See Bibliography, p. 118, for publications indicated by year in parentheses. 



ARTIFICIAL FEEDING 



Food preferences of fish usually 

 vary with age. The young can 

 swallow only small organisms and, 

 therefore, feed mostly on plankton. 

 Adults require larger and more 

 substantial food. For maximum 

 production in ponds, minnows 

 should be provided with the foods 

 most suited to their needs and 

 their ages. Choice of ponds and 

 fertilizer can greatly affect the 

 type and availability of food. 



The alternative to fertilizing is 

 artificial feeding. The usual pro- 

 cedure is to feed the fish all the 

 ground food they will eat in 2 

 hours. Ponds operated under ar- 

 tificial feeding have such large 

 populations of fish that food can- 

 not be allowed to remain longer 

 than 2 hours without danger to the 

 oxygen supply in the water. One 

 food formula used successfully con- 

 tains 15 percent of cottonseed meal 

 and meat scraps mixed with 85 

 percent of middlings. Another 

 formula contains 100 pounds of 

 beef melts, 50 pounds of dry dog 

 food, 50 pounds of whitefish meal, 

 6 pounds of salt, and water enough 



to make a good feeding consist- 

 ency. Fifty pounds of ground, 

 raw carp can be substituted for 25 

 ])ounds of fish meal. A formula 

 that produced large numbers of 

 minnows in Michigan is composed 

 of the following ingredients : 



Poundg 

 Cooked cornmeal and oatmeal 275 



Bone meal 200 



Clam meal 400 



Maggots can be provided by put- 

 ting fresh-meat scraps in a screen- 

 bottomed box, which is placed over 

 the pond so that the maggots fall 

 into the water. 



Many minnow ponds produce 

 large numbers of crayfish from 

 natural stock that either migrate 

 into the pond or hibernate in the 

 ])ond bottom. In many localities, 

 crayfish can be sold for bait, but 

 where there is no demand, ground 

 crayfish makes excellent minnow 

 food. Such food is usually avail- 

 able only in the fall when the 

 jionds are drained to harvest the 

 fish. Crayfish, ground or whole, 

 can be fed to the fish in winter 

 holding ponds, or used for ferti- 

 lizer on the pond bottom. 



At least twice as many fish can 



27 



