MY FAMILY HOMESTEAD

Hello Hive and the Homesteading community. I’m excited to find a great community like this that I can tell my agricultural stories and progress and most especially share my little fish farm with you all.

I’m currently out of school because there’s an ongoing strike for Federal Universities in my country and I’ve been trying to lay my hands on different things. I never had interest in agriculture, nevertheless, I was brought up knowing agricultural practices whether I liked it or not because of my mother. I see it as stressful and too much work which I always avoided.

MY MOM’S FARM

My mom is a huge lover of Agriculture and currently works in one of the Agricultural firms in the country. She not only rears livestock, but also sells their feed and is a distributor for livestock feeds in my state. Because of her love for agriculture, she curated a large piece of land beside our house for Animal Husbandry.

There’re poultry houses, earthen fish ponds and even mobile ones, as well as plantations of various crops. A mobile fish pond is one that is made out of a tarpaulin and is collapsible. It varies in size and capacity. Our mobile fish ponds measures 1.5m in depth and 10by10. It can accommodate up to 2000 fingerlings. It is flexible, easier during harvesting and it requires less amount of water.

The earthen pond on the other hand is a dugout pond. It is a flow through pond that’s most times linked to a river. An earthen pond is cheaper and easier to maintain. Also during harvesting, a fish bred in an earthen are most times bigger than that of a mobile pond because it is just like the pure and natural habitants of fish.

MY FISH FARM JOURNEY

I picked interest in the fish farming aspect of her animal husbandry and I was ready to own a personal farm.
I already had a background knowledge about it’s practices as I grew up knowing it, which made it easier for me to manage mine.

My mom handed me two ponds to manage and groom. The earthen and mobile pond. She provided me with feeds and the fingerlings. I got 500 fingerlings each to groom. Fingerlings are basically baby catfishes and they’re usually about 15cm measured up to a size of a finger.

I started my journey in May and I was given 3 months to harvest. I usually feed twice daily, morning and night with a feed measured 1.5mm. The bigger they grow, the higher ‘mm’ they pick. Alongside their feeds, I was given fish supplements and boosters to improve growth and reduce any form of stress that would lead to mortality.

I’ll be taking you on a journey on my harvest and restock that took place in August in my next post.

Thank you for reading