author(s)
A Rajeshkumar and M Balusamy

abstract
The composite fish culture experiment was planned to study the influence of different fish feeding methods on growth rate and yield performance of catla, rohu, mrigal and common carp in polyculture system and its impact on pond ecosystem during January to October 2016. A total of 800 fishes belonging to four species viz. Catla catla, Labeo rohita, Cirrhinus mrigala and Cyprinus carpio were stocked in three earthen ponds. The dimensions of each pond were 31 × 13 × 1.7 meter length, breadth and depth. Three experimental fish pond was selected namely; the fish pond manured with desi poultry droppings (T₁), fish pond manured with duck droppings (T₂) and fish pond manured with turkey droppings (T₃) was evaluated. Along with birds droppings all the fish were fed with a concentrated feed contains rice bran 40%, maize flour 40% and dried azolla 20% at 2% body weight of individual fish. Catla catla and C. carpio showed maximum growth which was followed by C. mrigala and L. rohita in all the three ponds. Maximum growth was observed in T₂ followed by T₁ and T₃. Among fish species Catla catla and C. carpio showed higher growth rates than the rest of fish species. Total fish yield of 696.9, 671 and 637.1 kg was obtained from the fish pond manured with duck dropping (T₂), desi poultry dropping (T₁) and turkey dropping (T₃) respectively.