Crescimento compensatório e efeito fisiológico da restrição e privação alimentar em tracajá (Podocnemis unifilis), durante o cultivo

Abstract

The establishment of man's relationship with biodiversity shows that hunting is one of the oldest. The main objective of hunting is to obtain food resources, as observed in the Amazon, in traditional populations, riverside and indigenous. However, the unregulated exploratory pressure of natural resources leads to the decline of populations of wild animals and may even lead to extinction. Captive breeding in commercial farms is an alternative to reduce exploratory pressure. The development of turtle farming requires research and knowledge of animal physiology, and other parameters that may help to boost production and decrease its costs. Deprivation and food restriction may be present in the animal's life history. To verify the animal behavior against this, several parameters can be analyzed, such as hematology and biochemistry, that present a rapid response related to nutritional status. The objective of this study was to verify the compensatory growth through weight gain and the physiological responses of the yellow spotted Amazon river turtle, Podocnemis unifilis, submitted to restriction and food deprivation during the cultivation. We evaluated 72 animals (P. unifilis) divided into three groups: control, restriction and food deprivation. In the control group, the animals were fed daily with commercial feed for fish with 28% crude protein, 3% of the biomass; In the restriction group, feeding was alternated, one week with food and one week without food supply; In the deprivation group, the animals remained with total suspension of feeding for the period of 60 days. The total experimental period was 90 days, and after 60 days, all experimental groups were fed for 30 days. The weight gain was higher in the control group and lower in the deprivation group, although this gain can not be characterized as compensatory growth, since it was not superior to the gain of the control group. The hematocrit values of the restriction and deprivation groups were lower than 20%, characterizing anemia of these animals. The concentrations of albumin and triglycerides of the restriction and deprivation groups were reduced when compared to the values of the control group, but these values increased with the feedback of these animals. There was no death of the animals during the experimental period and no irreversible losses, so the 50% decrease in feed in the production of the yellow spotted Amazon river turtles allows to save during its production. Reference values for P. unifilis are scarce in the literature, the development of studies in this sense is necessary and the use of feed restriction and feedback can bring great benefits to producers