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Soft shelled crayfish

Started by Guest_Gambusia_* , Jan 22 2008 10:40 AM

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10 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_Gambusia_*

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Posted 22 January 2008 - 10:40 AM

Is there anyway to raise soft shelled crayfish in captivity for fish food?

Thanks

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#2 Guest_sumthinsfishy_*

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Posted 22 January 2008 - 11:26 AM

You could raise hard shelled crayfish and catch them right after shedding.

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#3 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 22 January 2008 - 11:27 AM

Is there anyway to raise soft shelled crayfish in captivity for fish food?

Thanks

I don't think there are any crayfish that are soft-shelled all the time; you'd have to raise ordinary crayfish and harvest them when they are molting. You would have to have a lot of crayfish to get many molting specimens at any one time; most likely you'd need an entire pond dedicated to raising crayfish.

Now, there may be ways to induce crayfish to molt, but I would guess that it's not worth it unless you have a specialized predator that will only feed on soft crayfish; to my knowledge, the only such predators in North America are snakes in the genus Regina (and not all of them). Most fish that will take crayfish at all will take them hard or soft.

Why not raise grass shrimp instead? They're less well-armored than crayfish, and most predatory fish seem to like them.

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#4 Guest_tglassburner_*

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Posted 22 January 2008 - 11:52 AM

Why not raise grass shrimp instead? They're less well-armored than crayfish, and most predatory fish seem to like them.

Cherry shrimp are better to raise for feeders than grass shrimp IMO.

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#5 Guest_MScooter_*

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Posted 22 January 2008 - 02:22 PM

(For Human Consumption) Softshell Crawfish are available from a few purveyors during a very limited season in late March / early April at a high cost per DOZEN not per pound. They are a select pick harvest from a bejeezus amount of crawdads. The cost of sorting and picking your molts out in a farm situation would be prohibitive.

(For fish Consumption) I have seen sunfish, bass, catfish, and creek chubs take regular crawdads. A size gradient would be more important than whether or not they are molting, if you were to raise Crawfish for fish food.

How long does it take for an average Crawfish to molt anyway? (Not long huh?)

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#6 Guest_schambers_*

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Posted 22 January 2008 - 07:16 PM

How long does it take for an average Crawfish to molt anyway? (Not long huh?)

They can molt every few days when they are young, when they mature, not so often. I have one I got as a 1" juvie that molted three times in three weeks, and hasn't molted again for three months. (Either that or he gobbled it up before I noticed.)

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#7 Guest_centrarchid_*

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Posted 23 January 2008 - 03:57 PM

Is there anyway to raise soft shelled crayfish in captivity for fish food?

Thanks

There has been and may still be commercial producers of soft shelled crayfish in northern Indiana based on the rusty crayfish and in the south based on red swamp crayfish. Adults were used both. Market in north for bait and market in south for the table and bait.

Nortrhn producers did acquire large numbers of wild caught animals (hard crawls) and hold them at extremely high densities indoors. Animals were periodically checked (48-h intervals) for being of the peeler stage a.k.a nearly ready to molt. High school kids did this all day long. Peelers were moved to molting trays to molt and soft crawls were then harvested and prepared for shipment while refrigerated with wet paper. hard crawls were fed dailt with fish chow at least in part.

Southern producers very similar except at least some employed selective harvesting gear that preferentially collected subadult peelers as such animals typically avoided traps with hard crawls.

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#8 Guest_Gambusia_*

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Posted 23 January 2008 - 07:34 PM

Thanks

In my experience fish prefer soft shelled crays to hard bodied ones.

They just love soft shelled crays.

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#9 Guest_bullhead_*

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Posted 23 January 2008 - 11:35 PM

In the Chicago area, soft-shelled crayfish sell for a premium as yellow perch bait.

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#10 Guest_centrarchid_*

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Posted 24 January 2008 - 06:46 PM

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In my experience fish prefer soft shelled crays to hard bodied ones.

They just love soft shelled crays.

In the Big River of Missouri at least, central longear and smallmouth bass with stack up outside of a burrow containing a soft crayfish. The longear may have even been trying to dig the crayfish out by taking one rock at a time with their mouth.

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#11 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 24 January 2008 - 06:51 PM

You could always just keep some crayfish in the tank with your fish; if the fish want to wait until the crayfish molts to eat it, then they can do so.