Salmon nutrition directly affects their health, immune function, and welfare throughout production. Feed quality, feeding methods, and satiation level all have welfare implications.
Salmon nutrition welfare operates at multiple levels. Individual fish welfare depends on receiving adequate nutrition without experiencing competition stress from inadequate food distribution. Automated feeding systems with underwater cameras monitoring uneaten feed allow precise feeding matching fish appetite, reducing both underfeeding (hunger) and overfeeding (water quality impacts). Feed quality affects immune function and disease resistance over the production cycle. Pre-harvest feed restriction, while standard practice to improve flesh quality and reduce processing waste, imposes hunger on fish for the welfare-relevant period before slaughter. Welfare-conscious production minimises the duration and extent of pre-harvest restriction. Nutritional deficiencies from poor feed quality cause specific health and welfare problems including skeletal malformation and immune compromise.