After ascertaining that the site has got all the requirements of a good fish pond, then the excavation starts.
There are two ways of digging a pond. Farmers with the means hire tractors to excavate the ponds. The average cost of using a tractor to construct a 20×40 metre pond is sh10m.
But this is a bigger pond. A farmer can construct smaller ponds of say 10×20 metres depending on their desires.
Note that a tractor takes a shorter time to accomplish the job, compared to manual labour, however, manual labour is cheaper and affordable for smallholder farmers.
Can I construct the pond in any shape that I wish?
The pond must be rectangular because this makes it easy to maintain, especially when guarding it against silting.
It is also easy to harvest fish from a rectangular pond than from a pond of any other shape because you can easily sweep through all the corners.
If several ponds are constructed, they should be parallel to each other to ease management. Make sure that each pond has got an inlet and outlet.
Some are constructed with the wrong depth. Some have no proper water outlets and inlets and lack the recommended gradients. Fish cannot survive under such conditions.
