Análise econômica da inclusão de imunoestimulantes na alimentação de Tilápias do Nilo (Oreochromis Niloticus) durante o período vacinal

Abstract

Tilapiculture is the most important aquaculture activity in Brazil and the intensification of ti-lapia production has led to a higher incidence of diseases. In an attempt to reduce the impacts of health problems, fish farmers use antimicrobial agents indiscriminately. Improper use of these drugs has increased the incidence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in aquaculture. The ob-jective of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of immunostimulants in the feeding of farmed fish as a replacement for the use of antibiotics during the vaccination period. The ex-periment was conducted in a commercial tilapia farm in net cages and the fish were divided into 4 treatments: feed only (control group), feed with additive 1, feed with additive 2 and feed with antibiotic. The experiment was conducted for a period of 14 days. In additive treatments, the medicated feed was provided 7 days before and 7 days after the vaccination of juveniles and the antibiotic group received medicated feed 5 days before and 5 days after vaccination. The productive and economic performances of each treatment were evaluated. The group with ad-ditive 1 showed superiority for specific growth rate and better feed conversion ratio (FCR) over the other treatments. Antibiotic treatment had worse FCR, presenting lower profit margin and lower cost-benefit ratio, also due to the higher cost of antimicrobial acquisition. The profit mar-gin and cost-benefit ratio were similar between control and additive treatments. The use of ad-ditives 1 and 2 was efficient in the replacement of antimicrobial pre and post vaccination of tilapia under the conditions of the present experiment.