Scientific and technical studies carried out under semi-intensive farming conditions, with large earthen ponds (Fig 1), to assess the effects of treatments on zootechnical results are highly complex due to the many logistical, economic and/or experimental constraints involved. In our study, we evaluated the use of floatingcages (Paquotte et al., 1998) immersed in earthen ponds as an experimental tool in order to design future powerful and economical expe-riments under semi-intensive farming conditions.
