No the mass ratio is about 15 to 1. A 4" BG provides roughly 6.67% of a 12" LMB's body weight. It is enough to sustain 12" LMB for four days and if 12" LMB can eat one every day for 30 days he'll gain >30% of his body weight
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Do you have some data, or can you comment, on the conversion ratio of the 'raw BG' into net body mass for the LMB?
Assuming 5lbs forage annually for maintenance works out to 1.36% of body mass daily maintenance. So actually maybe 5 days maintenance. That available for growth is the excess above maintenance :
6.67% - 1.36% = 5.3%
The relative weight ingested for growth over 30 days:
1.053^30 - 1 = 4.7- 1 = 3.7 times the starting weight
Divide by conversion of 10 to 1 = .37 or 37% .... to be conservative, I stated > than 30% growth.
The estimate relies on the validity of maintenance and gain conversion factors and it neglects the rising maintenance as the fish grows through the 30 days.
>30% in one month is AWESOME but most pond-owners have LMB that surpass that growth early in the life of the BOW. Let's say you grow your initial stocker LMB from 2" to 2lbs in the first 12 months. The monthly growth must average 74%/month in order to achieve the weight. Most of the growth rate is frontloaded where the bigger the LMB gets, the slower its rate of growth. Even so, to achieve 2lbs in 12 months likely requires >30% monthly growth rate when the fish is 1lb.
