Dr Loc’s Key Steps to Antibiotic-Free Shrimp Production

And, given that he is putting this theory into practice on\r\nhis own shrimp nursery and grow-out farm in Vietnam it is hard to argue with\r\nhis logic. He recently shared a few key pointers with The Fish Site for\r\nantibiotic-free shrimp production.

What are most\r\nimportant means to negate the need to use antibiotics in shrimp production?

The key place to start is the need to apply biosecurity in\r\nyour production unit, and that can be done by better water treatment,\r\nbiosecurity measures, diagnostics and being sure that the facility is pathogen\r\nfree.

Bearing in mind that we have to deal with the ubiquity of\r\nvibrios and other types of bacteria, the second step is to keep the environment\r\nclean – through better pond management and also water treatment and removing\r\nsludge and effluent during culture. It’s also crucial to use probiotics to take\r\ncare of the waste – organic waste and also other kinds of effluents like\r\nammonia, nitrite and hydrogen sulphide. By keeping the environment clean you\r\nwill have clean stock and clean water, and the animal will be very healthy.

We also need to keep the aquatic animal’s gut microbiota\r\nhealthy by applying active probiotics for microbiome moderation. By doing that,\r\nvibrios cannot produce enough toxins to cause damage to the animals.

In the feed itself we can apply feed additives,\r\nprophylactics and quorum-quenching products to minimise the impact of bacterial\r\ninfection. Particular ingredients include acidifiers, monoglycerides and\r\nphytogenics, which provide a good substrate to replace the use of antibiotics\r\nbecause they can suppress the growth of harmful bacteria and promote a healthy\r\nmicrobiome in the animal gut.

All of these methods are only effective, however, if farmers\r\nare well educated and well informed about new developments in farming\r\ntechnology so that they’re able to see the broader picture. They also must have\r\na very clear farming protocol from day one.

Loc has found that antibiotic-free production has made his\r\nresults much more consistent

How has applying\r\nthese techniques affected your own production?

The ShrimpVet lab\r\nwas founded about six years ago and our main activities were initially in\r\nR&D and diagnostics. However, we soon began to realise that in order to\r\nbetter assist farmers we had to apply those concepts into shrimp production.\r\nThis is why we founded a hatchery – it gave us the chance to start applying\r\nthese concepts of biosecurity, probiotic maturation in the water, probiotics in\r\nfeed and better management of the environment. This allowed us, eventually, to\r\nproduce very high-quality shrimp post-larvae and we can now apply the same\r\nconcept to our grow-out farm too – we now have a pretty decent sized farm, all\r\nour ponds now plastic-lined and we apply probiotic activation from the nursery\r\nphase, as well as all the disease-control concept lines mentioned earlier.

How has this worked\r\nout for you?

Everything has become very consistent – the survival rate at\r\nour hatchery is always about 50 percent, we don’t have any issues with\r\nluminescent disease or EMS [early mortality syndrome] or other bacterial\r\ndiseases in the hatchery. At the grow-out farm level we don’t encounter either\r\nEMS or white faeces when we apply a clear farming protocol with proactive\r\ndisease-control measures.

How many cycles have\r\nyou gone without using antibiotics?

We’ve operated the hatchery for three years – we stock with\r\nnew nauplii every day in each production unit and each production cycle will\r\nlast for about three weeks, so we have done at least 30 cycles already. After\r\nseveral cycles we began to master the skill.

On the grow-out farm we have completed several cycles too\r\nnow and have advocated similar practices in other farms in Vietnam and across\r\nAsia. We’ve also persuaded farmers in Latin America to follow suit – in late\r\n2017, for example, there was a big issue with mortalities in hatcheries in\r\nSalinas in Ecuador. We did our diagnostics so we knew what was going on; we\r\nadvised the hatchery operator to follow the protocol and now we don’t hear much\r\nabout the problems in the hatchery. We’ve also educated farmers across India\r\nand in many other countries in Asia to follow these procedures.

Would you like to see\r\nyour methods become the standard operating procedure (SOP) for the shrimp\r\nsector globally?

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It might be too much to come up with an SOP for farming\r\nbecause the shrimp business is very dynamic and we keep facing new challenges\r\nevery day. But I would say that sharing ideas is important so we can all deal\r\nwith the situation as it evolves and can plan for any emerging threats.

Source : The Fish Site