Caring for our fish
Breeding, nurturing, and harvesting healthy fish is at the core of Petuna’s business.
Not only do we have a duty of care to ensure our fish are grown in a welfare friendly environment, but healthy fish also translate to a higher quality product. Petuna recognises that fish health and human health go hand in hand, and we take additional care to ensure we provide consumers with a nutritious and safe product.
Stocking densities
Petuna’s marine farms are stocked at some of the lowest commercial stocking densities in the world. Conservative fish stock management has always been and will continue to be our company philosophy.
Fish stocking densities in the Tasmanian salmon industry are among the world’s lowest, at an average ratio of 1.5% salmon to 98.5% water. This ensures our fish have plenty of room, allows oxygenated water to flow through the farms, maintains water quality, enhances fish health and wellbeing, and provides the healthy environment required to grow salmon.
Antibiotics
We keep our fish healthy by hand-vaccinating 100% of our stock and raising them in optimal environmental conditions. We conduct regular testing and surveillance of our fish to make sure we keep on top of any emerging diseases.
To ensure antibiotic use remains low, our industry continues to invest significant funds towards the development of vaccines.
On the rare occasion antibiotics are required, fish are dosed using medicated feed under veterinarian supervision. Treated fish then go through a withdrawal period, where they are removed from the harvesting pool to make sure no antibiotic residue reaches our consumers.
We never use antibiotics for growth enhancement, and never administer prophylactically. We work in accordance with World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and Tasmanian guidelines, and participate in national residue surveys, testing for any traces of antibiotics.
Petuna’s antibiotic use
In 2021, antibiotics were prescribed and administered under veterinary supervision to treat skin lesions (scale loss) on some of our salmon stock. Scale loss can lead to opportunistic bacterial infections, so it is important for the welfare of our fish to treat affected populations.
