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Summary of full report

Crocodile Farming Research: On-farm research of pelleted feed for crocodiles

by SKJ Peucker and RH Jack

February 2006 RIRDC
Publication No 06/016 RIRDC Project No DAQ-300A

Executive Summary

The Report
The report describes progress in the development of formulating and testing manufactured feeds for raising crocodiles in intensified husbandry environments

The Target
Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) and the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPI&F) have a contractual agreement designed to assist the development of the Australian crocodile industry. Both organisations share the goal of a profitable and sustainable commercial industry, which will achieve its objectives through improved technology.

The primary beneficiaries of this research program will be Australian commercial crocodile producers.

There will also be a flow on effect to tanners, processors, retailers and ultimately consumers by having a guaranteed supply of quality product available to them.

Background
Crocodile farming is described as an emerging industry and as such has less experience with commercial intensive livestock principles than the more established industries such as pigs and poultry. Despite this comparative lack of intensive livestock skills, the crocodile industry is making rapid progress in closing the gap. Crocodile farming is moving from extensive outdoor practices, modelled on wild habitat observations which are much influenced by climatic conditions, to intensive environmentally controlled housing which is being used for hatchlings and in some cases for grower animals on commercial farms. Several producers are going a step further and creating individual pens for grower animals to prevent fighting and subsequent skin damage, thus placing a more valuable product on the market which leads to higher returns on investment. Most producers have expanded their operations considerably over the last two to three years. Demand for skins and meat continues to increase, with demand outstripping supply.

Manufactured feed (pellets) was first identified as an industry priority at an industry meeting in 1995.

Grower animals raised on diets consisting of poultry by-products tend to produce over fat square shaped skins. From the tanners and manufacturer perspective they require a narrower rectangle shaped skin because they can cut more product from skins with this configuration. Manufactured feed offers the opportunity to manipulate diets in order to meet produce animals with skins that client demands.

Research has already established that crocodiles will eat manufactured diets containing no raw meat and that growth rates of 16grams/crocodile/day are being achieved. Also that manufactured feed offers a 2.4:1 ratio over offal diets on a dry matter basis. Recent work has shown that a slow weaning process offers the best opportunity of gaining acceptability by young crocodiles and that acceptability appears to be linked to the animals live weight rather than age. (see RIRDC publication No 05/152 titled Crocodile Farming Research: Hatching to Harvest.) Profit margins vary between farms depending on a number of inputs such as labour, animal costs, feed and mortalities. The cost of feeding animals represents a significant proportion of the cost of production. It is anticipated that pelleted feed has the potential to reduce feed costs by as much as 20-40 % with the production of a commercially available steam extruded pellet with 10% moisture content.

Other advantages in using manufactured feed over meat diets are in transportation, storage and handling costs. Manufactured feed will provide better nutrition and nutrient supply to crocodiles while also reducing the cost of diets. In recent times drought conditions across much of Australia combined with increasing fuel prices have had a two fold effect on feed. The drought is placing pressure on the availability of traditional food such as kangaroo meat and fuel prices have pushed up the freight component of transporting feed to farms thus affecting profitability. These two factors add to the necessity for the manufactured feed research to continue.

Aims and Objectives

    • Initiate on-farm feeding trials using the most successful pellet diet from the research program.
    • Implement use of an environmentally friendly and consumer acceptable crocodile feed on farms.
    • Establish the feeding and growth response for farmed crocodiles on trial (pelleted) diets- the trials will cover hatchlings, juveniles and growers>2 years old.
    • Purchase of a Bioelectrical Impedance Analyser (BIA) machine or similar equipment so that growth response measurements will be standardised across farms.
    • Promote growth of lean crocodiles to meet market demand.
    • Compare on-farm pellet feed costs with traditional diets of chicken heads and kangaroo meat.


Methods
This report covers the trialling of manufactured feed under commercial conditions from 2003-2005.

Several farms in the Northern Territory and Queensland have participated in these trials. Pellet acceptability on farms to date has not been successful to the stage where animals are fed solely manufactured feed. There are a number of reasons for this including acceptability of the pellet itself other factors such as disease outbreaks and other management issues have played apart in the total non acceptance of manufactured feed during these trials.

Results
Crocodiles have been taken through to harvest size fed solely on manufactured feed. This has occurred only when animals have been returned from the Department’s facility to a commercial farm.

Upon return the animals have continued to be fed manufactured feed. Small groups of animals have been deemed suitable for harvesting over trial period. It is worth noting in this instance that having only one pen available for research lead to some animals growing quite well and other’s performing poorly. Under normal practices, the larger animals would have been graded off to another pen of similar size animals thus allowing the smaller animals to gain better access to feed.

At harvesting it was observed by processors that the carcasses of animals fed manufactured feed had considerably less body fat than those fed chicken heads. The quality of the meat appeared normal in colour and texture. No quantity data on carcass composition has been recorded yet but the opportunity to grow more meat per animal than fat will have advantages for industry.

The cost of developing diets for research can be some what misleading and at this stage of the development it is difficult to fully cost and compare with current industry feeds. Semi moist pellets (30% moisture) manufactured at the research level (on-site at Townsville DPI&F) cost between $1.20 and $1.43/kg based on the cost of the ingredients alone. A shelf stable pellet was recently developed that does not require refrigeration at a cost of $1.63/kg. The cost of traditional diets currently range between $0.65c/kg to $2.00/kg. To get a more accurate comparison the different diets need to compared on a dry matter basis. This is where the potential for manufactured feed can be realised along with a better supply and use of nutrients to the animal. Savings will also come via reduced transportation and a reduction in storage costs.

Developing research diets often requires the need for "one off" purchases of ingredients or buying ingredients in smaller quantities than is normally commercially available. Such considerations will increase the cost of developing diets.

Implications
A considerable amount of the research has been already been extended to industry via a rigorous extension program. Detailed information on outcomes from the R&D program can also be found in numerous RIRDC and DPI&F publications. These include: Crocodile Farming Research- hatchling to harvest. Published in September 2005 by RIRDC and DPI&F Crocodile Research and Development Bulletin Volume 3 2001.

Recommendations
One aspect that could be further examined is the skin quality of animals fed manufactured feed. A very small number of skins have been examined for quality and revealed no apparent problems or defects.

The measuring of body condition in crocodiles and the relationship between meat and fat composition should be a consideration for future research. The ability to produce animals, with more meat and less fat will have important economic implications for the industry. To this end the research group have employed technology used in human nutrition research. The development of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) for measuring body condition in crocodiles will be a useful tool in developing manufactured diets. A detailed article on this work can be found in RIRDC publication No 05/152 titled Crocodile Farming Research: Hatching to Harvest.

 

Last updated: February 2006
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