RESULTS OF SOME TROUT FEEDING EXPERIMENTS 



CARRIED ON IN THE EXPERIMENTAL HATCHING 



STATION OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.* 



By G. C. Embody, 



Assistant Professor of Aquiculture. 



The rise in cost of the fresh meats commonly used in feeding 

 trout has made it necessary to find something which might be 

 substituted partly or wholly therefor. This was the chief purpose 

 in initiating the experiments referred to in the present paper. 



A trout food in general should meet two principal requirements : 

 first, it should keep the trout in perfect health, rendering them less 

 susceptible to the attacks of various diseases, and second, it 

 should be efficient as a flesh or egg producer. That is, it should 

 produce flesh of prime quality in the shortest time and with the 

 least expense, or in the case of eggs, their quality, quantity and 

 cost should constitute the essential consideration. 



One must recognize, of course, that the food is not the only 

 factor to be reckoned with in the production of fish flesh and fish 

 eggs. Undoubtedly fish are much like poultry in that the ability 

 of certain individuals to grow rapidly and produce eggs in quan- 

 tity, is inherited and not acquired by the use of certain foods. 

 Some individual trout may not grow rapidly nor produce eggs in 

 quantity even if given the best known foods in abundance. Nev- 

 ertheless fish cannot grow nor produce eggs of normal quality 

 and quantity without proper food. Inasmuch as liver has been 

 the most generally used food in trout hatcheries, it was thought 

 desirable to compare any new foods with liver as regards the two 

 principal requirements, health of the trout and efficiency of 

 the food. 



Several wooden troughs identical in size were set up in such 

 a manner as to receive exactly the same volume of water per 

 minute from the same source. Each trough was provided with a 



* This paper was awarded first place by the American Fisheries Society 

 for original work in fish culture. 



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