Let’s answer this question with another question. How different is farming pigs and poultry to farming fish and prawns?
The clearest commonality among these industries is the fact that we are farming animals. And in farming animals, poor animal health decreases the performance of farm animals, leading to lowered production and associated economic losses due to mortality and morbidity. Additionally, poor animal health has a negative impact on animal welfare.
"It is not a secret that livestock farms relied on veterinarians for many decades to improve their animal health, and consequently promote efficient farm production and increase farm profits to their current levels. Using mortality rates as an indicator, the beef, dairy, broiler and swine industries report rate of 1%, 5%, 4% and 5% (Hickey, 2015) through a production cycle. Compare this with salmon production, where fish still suffers mortality rates as high as 20-25% (Hickey, 2015).
Are fish farmers aware of how much they are missing out on by not employing veterinarians to work within the aquaculture industry?"
So how and where do veterinarians fit into the scheme of farming animals? Terrestrial or aquatic, for that matter? What are the barriers (perceived or real) to utilising veterinarians on fish farms?
Read more in the article below.
