Enteric disease in whiteleg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei are presenting during the whole year and distributed worldwide, especially in Ecuador and Mexico shrimp farming facilities. Generic pathogen Vibrio spp. can cause mortality and poor performance of farmed shrimp, affecting economically shrimp industry. Although there is not an economical estimate only for bacterial diseases, in general the impact of diseases caused in the industry is estimated in about 22% production losses annually (Flegel et al., 2008).
Cargill developed a functional feed concept called SmartShield to tackle enteric diseases in L. vannamei for starters feeds which is commercialized in both countries, Ecuador and Mexico since 2019. Latest developments of postbiotics and phytogenics brought a new SmartShield concept for grower feeds which was assessed commercially with strategic customers between 2020-2021.
The blend of additives has a total inclusion level of 6.0% in feed and in is based in a high nutritional density feed. This feed was assessed in Ecuador and Mexico in field trials with records of bacterial diseases during different cycles of production. First trial was performed in Ecuador, where shrimps were allocated in 13 ponds (~10 Ha/pond) with a stocking density of 15 shrimp/m2, distributed in 7 ponds for regular feed and 6 ponds for SmartShield feed. Shrimps were fed with regular and functional feeds, respectively, since 1.5 g/shrimp until 95 days before harvest.
Second trial was done in Mexico, in Sonora state, where shrimps were allocated in 8 ponds (5 Ha/pond) with a stocking density of 20 shrimp/m2. Each group of shrimps were fed with a regular feed or functional feed since 3 g/shrimp until 61 days before harvest.
Results showed that additional survival of animals fed with SmartShield were 5% and 8%, in Ecuador and Mexico respectively, both with statistically significant differences (p<0.05).