BIO MARINUS LIQUID FISH SILAGE

Our aim is to utilise all of the waste from our processing plant to create different valuable products like Liquid Fish Fertiliser, Fish Silage & Fish Bone.

Our products are totally natural, manufactured by using fish offal from our fish processing operations.

We take the offal from our processing plant to a tank where the fish proteins are hydrolysed into small peptides and amino acids by the help of the enzymes at low temperature.

This hydrolysed liquid product retains all the nutrients of the fish including vitamins, minerals, approximately 7.5% fish oil, omega 3 and 6 complexes and amino acids and can be processed into

Liquid Fish Fertiliser for the benefit of plant and soil health, and Fish Silage to feed animals for their health benefits

We had to meet three criteria to make our Fertiliser commercially viable. They are:

1. No Smell
2. The product must remain emulsified
3. The product should have a particle size less than 200 micron

For Fish Silage again we had to meet three criteria to produce a commercially viable animal feed. These are:

1. Palatability
2. No Smell
3. The product must remain emulsified

We have done many trials and overcame all these issues.

Nearly two years of data research and trials has resulted in a very good biological product for the use of both Plants and Animals.

Now I can proudly say that this is the first commercial energy efficient plant in New Zealand to produce Liquid Fish Fertiliser and Liquid Fish Silage by enzymatic method to be used by the New Zealand Agricultural industry.

Bio Marinus is the most complex and complete biological product.

Fish Silage in New Zealand Livestock Industries

Jim Gibbs, Animal Science, Lincoln University
A Lincoln University and United Fisheries Project funded by Seafood Innovation Limited.

Fish by-products have been used in livestock production systems internationally for centuries. Typically these products have high content of valuable protein, and oils rich in polyunsaturated and and omega-3 fats. While these components are of considerable value as energy and protein sources, they have also been the subject of much research both here in New Zealand and internationally on their specific effects on ruminant health and production. These include the effect of fish proteins in improved immune responses to internal parasites, the increase in the proportion of polyunsaturated fats in milk and meat products and a characteristic reduction in methane production when fish oils are included in the diet. In addition, the ready availability of fish by-products enabled their use in boosting protein in the diets of young stock in those seasonal ‘windows’ where feed quality is lower, such as summer.

However, traditional methods of processing fish by-products for use in livestock involved extensive drying to produce fishmeal, and the large energy inputs required resulted in an expensive final product, which has typically limited their use.

With the United Fisheries innovation of a low energy input processing system to produce fish silage, a research project was undertaken by Lincoln University and United Fisheries, funded by Seafood Innovation Limited, to assess the possible benefits and use of this product in New Zealand ruminants. This is a three year project, with the objective of comprehensively assessing the ruminant responses to fish silage in the diet, and the viability of practical use of the product in New Zealand industries. However, some of the specific objectives are the assessment the effects of fish silage on: internal parasites in sheep and cattle; methane production in the rumen; milk and meat proportions of polyunsaturated fats.

Preliminary results from the initial exploratory trials of the first six months are available.

• In dairy cows, fish oil in the diet at a targeted grazing time of the day resulted in a significant and sustained reduction in methane production by rumen microbes across the entire day compared to the control group.
• In dairy calves, the use of fish silage in the diet was observed to result in a significant reduction in the worm egg counts to approximately a third of the level of the control group.
• In dairy cows, fish oil in the diet immediately and significantly raised the PUFA content of milk.
• Extensive feeding of the product to cattle and sheep has demonstrated the product is easily and quickly accepted in the diet by livestock.

The future experimental work in this project now progresses to larger scale assessments of the effect of fish silage in sheep and cattle diets, and the specific effects on rumen function and methane production.