Organic acid has played an important role in enhancing the gut health for several animals, including the livestock and aquatic animals. However, from the field it has showed the commercial products in the market, mainly a combination of formic acid, propionic acid and acetic acid has not worked well for shrimp so far while raw materials, such as soybean meal; fermented with Lactobacillus sp. has been practiced both at farm level and commercially added in commercial shrimp feeds for gut-health benefits. Recently, Cargill has developed a fermented corn protein product, namely “MOTIV” with several trials, testing in the indoor culture system and grow-out farms has resulted in very promising shrimp performances.
MOTIV was first done in the US in an indoor test to compare with a non-fermented corn protein as the control without organic acid adding and with organic acid adding at the same organic-acid level and 3 times of the organic acid level. The results showed to increase upto 19.2% in weight gain and decreased in 16.3% in feed conversion rate for the MOTIV diet vs the control without organic acid adding and it was also better than the control added with the same level of organic acid or 3 times of organic acid adding. Results also showed poor performances in the treatment of adding too much organic acid vs the diet with lower level of organic acid.
A second trial was done in Vietnam and Taiwan with fishmeal replacement by the MOTIV at 6%, 9%, and 12% inclusion of the MOTIV in the diets at medium stress condition (80 PL/m2) and high stress culture condition (300 PL/m2). Results showed NO significant differences (P>0.05) in the MOTIV diets vs the fishmeal control diet in terms of weight gain, feed conversion rate, and survival in medium stress condition while significant differences in survival rates (P<0.05) were recorded between the MOTIV diets (6% and 12%) vs the fishmeal-diet control in high stress culture system.
Commercial trial with a big feed mill in Ecuador for fishmeal replacement with 10 earthen ponds (5 ponds for Motiv diets and 5 ponds for commercial feeds) in around 110 days also resulted in 9.22% of weight gain increasing and decreasing in18.3% of feed conversion rate. Commercial trials in several shrimp feed ponds in Vietnam will also be updated soon.
In conclusion, the MOTIV trails has showed a very positive performances for shrimp in terms of significant improvement of the feed conversion rate, weight gain as well as survivability in high stress condition; therefore, is a promising fermented corn protein for shrimp feed industry to look for a sustainable growth.