How to Fatten Yellow Eel (Monopterus albus) Quickly? A Detailed Guide to the New Technique

    Every winter, yellow eel sells at a high market price, and large-sized eels in particular are in great demand, with prices reaching as high as about 70 yuan per kilogram. May to November is the golden period for fattening yellow eel: select good fattening eel fry; supply abundant and nutritious feed; and carry out daily management tasks such as water quality control, temperature control, feeding and disease prevention. After about 6 months of fattening, yellow eel can gain 3? times its weight, and the eels generally reach a size of over 150 g. They fetch a high market price, and the economic returns are very significant.

    I. Selecting the Eels

    The eel fry used for artificial fattening should be somewhat larger, with a single-body weight of preferably over 30-40 g. Generally, you can directly buy commercially bred eel fry or purchase local wild eels. At present, yellow eel breeding all uses the "natural reproduction" method. Due to the special characteristics of yellow eel reproduction, there are currently no commercially bred yellow eel fry available in large quantities in China, so the fattening fry are mainly sourced from purchased wild eels.

    The eel fry used for fattening should be purchased from those caught by cage traps, by gathering with aquatic plants, by hand, or by electric fishing. Purchased eel fry should be spared the unscientific and prolonged storage by eel catchers, so as to avoid causing fever, colds or infections in the eels. After purchase, cull the injured, disabled, weak and diseased eels, then first place the rest in an observation pond and gradually use "Shanbao No. 2", "Shanbao Xin No. 5", "Shanbao Xin No. 4" and multivitamins, "Shanbao No. 6" and "Shanbao No. 1" and other medications to treat and prevent disease and pests in the yellow eel. Once the fry are confirmed healthy, they can be used as fattening subjects.

    II. Fattening Feed

    Yellow eel eats relatively little, but has a high protein requirement, and has a particular preference for earthworms, fly maggots and the like. Make extensive use of livestock and poultry manure such as pig manure, cow manure and chicken manure, add EM microbial agent and ferment it, then raise large quantities of earthworms and fly maggots. The sterile earthworms and fly maggots produced not only cater to the yellow eel's feeding preference, providing good animal bait for feed training, but also provide cheap, high-protein feed, which can greatly reduce fattening costs and increase fattening profits. Other animal baits can include small fish and shrimp, field snails, river mussels, animal offal and so on.

    The fattening feed should be a combination of animal bait and fish feed. Do not use a single animal bait such as earthworms or fly maggots alone for fattening, otherwise the feed conversion rate will be low and the fattening cycle will be lengthened, affecting the fattening results. The mixed feed uses 50%-60% animal bait, 40%-50% fish feed, and the concentrated feed accounts for 1% of the fish feed. For the fish feed, you can directly buy carp feed, eel feed, longsnout catfish feed or frog feed and other feeds with a protein content above 30%, then add animal bait such as earthworms, concentrated feed and a binder, and process them into soft balls or soft strips. Specific method: crush the fish feed, add minced animal bait such as earthworms and the concentrated feed, then add a small amount of binder and an appropriate amount of water and mix well, put it through a machine, and use a meat grinder (prepare 3-5 mm die holes, choosing the size according to the size of the yellow eel) to grind it into thin strip-shaped soft feed. Let it dry for a while, then gently turn it over by hand so the longer strips break apart naturally. For small-scale eel farming, the ball-mixing method can be used: add chopped animal bait such as earthworms to the crushed fish feed, then add the concentrated feed and a small amount of binder and an appropriate amount of water and mix into balls. You can also mince the animal bait, add the binder, concentrated feed and an appropriate amount of water to make a paste, then directly pour in pelleted fish feed and mix it into a ball-shaped mixed feed. The mixed feed should be prepared and used fresh, and should not be stored for long. If animal bait is in short supply, you can use the limited animal bait for feed training of the eels, then gradually add fish feed until the eels are fed entirely on fish feed.