Breeding crayfish at home: how to grow them yourself

Breeding crayfish in a private area is a simple and profitable business. To grow arthropods at home, you need to acquire a reservoir and maintain minimally comfortable conditions for its inhabitants. Experts give recommendations on where to start and how best to build the process of growing crayfish. And video tips will help you figure it out in more detail.

Fundamentals of breeding crayfish. Preparatory work

The whole process of growing crayfish can be adjusted with minimal financial investment. Here's where you'll have to be patient. Crayfish grow over 2-3 years. Accordingly, starting from scratch, until this time you will not receive any delicacy meat or profit. But you will need to constantly feed the animals, take care of them.

The efficiency of the process is affected by the quality of the crayfish used for reproduction:

1. For breeding, it is better to use purchased thoroughbreds. Crayfish caught in an ordinary pond grow more slowly.
2. You should buy adult arthropods. You can raise the young on your own.
3. The optimal ratio of males and females for good offspring is 1:2.

For breeding it is better to use purebred crayfish

Calculated: to get 1 ton of crayfish, you need to buy 400 females. For a beginner water management, 40 pieces are enough for the first time. They are sold in specialized fishing companies. This, to a certain extent, guarantees the reliability of the type you have chosen.

Advice. You can not buy males if females have caviar on legs.

How to properly equip a pond

Water is the natural habitat of crayfish. For home breeding use both natural and. Good housing for arthropods has the following qualities:

• area - 30-60 sq. m;
• depth - 1-3 m;
• optimal heating - not lower than +18 ° C, otherwise the crayfish will go into hibernation;
• the water is completely renewed every 2-3 weeks.

Attention! At one time, you can not renew more than 30% of the volume of the reservoir. This will lead to a violation of the microclimate.

The advantage of natural reservoirs is the presence of a clay or sandy bottom with a silt cushion: it is in such conditions that crayfish dig minks for themselves and create a comfortable microclimate. The downside is the slowed down by 3 times the growth rate of cancers.

Pond for growing crayfish

Aquariums are most often used as artificial places. This is quite expensive: you will most likely need several containers. Maintaining the correct temperature in them is easier, but more expensive. You can put filtering units at the inlet to the aquarium and save yourself the need to manually renew the water.

Advice. People who decide to start breeding crayfish for sale choose aquariums. All costs for additional equipment are paid off due to the rapid growth of crayfish.

The best types of crayfish for breeding at home

Having equipped a place for growing, proceed to the purchase of a living basis for reproduction. Among crayfish lovers, the following varieties are popular:

• Australian. Has a good meat layer. It is grown only in buried artificial reservoirs. Comfortable volume for 3-4 individuals - 100 liters. Inside, you should equip a lot of minks and shelters for food, rest, molting. They eat dead fish, bread crumbs, algae, special food.
• Blue Cuban. Inconspicuous look. It is unpretentious, except that it needs a water temperature of about +26 ° C. The water itself must be hard. In the reservoir, you also need to equip a lot of shelters. The species develops to an adult in just six months.

blue cuban crayfish

• Marble. Large and fleshy. Capricious to care. Requires water heating up to +20…+28 °C, relatively large amount of feed. The comfortable volume of the reservoir is 100 liters for 20 individuals. In reproduction, one individual acts as both a female and a male. Fry should be removed due to the risk of cannibalism.

Attention! The primary purchase of crayfish for breeding is not the last. To get a full-fledged herd that can independently reproduce its numbers, periodic purchases will be needed for 5 years.

Crayfish care

The main features of caring for a herd of crayfish will help you get full-fledged and healthy individuals:

1. Separate and transplant to another pond every new young generation.
2. In the spring, catch females and transplant them into another container. This will help prevent cannibalism and keep the colony alive.
3. The optimum temperature for females is +22 ° C or slightly lower.

Crayfish are notorious scavengers. Their diet includes the remains of fish, algae. However, at home breeding, animals should be supplemented. To do this, use vegetables, boiled meat, plankton, larvae, worms, the same algae and fish. You can buy special food at the pet store.

Attention! Can't overfeed crayfish. Better not feed.

The ratio of 1:2 males and females is relevant, based on physiology. One crayfish can only fertilize two females. If after that he sees another one, he will probably decide to eat it. After fertilization, the layer of eggs is located in the female under the shell. By the end of next spring, it moves to its hind legs. From the eggs of one arthropod, an average of about 20 young crayfish appears, although at home, experienced breeders achieve an indicator of 60.

Crayfish breeding for sale is a profitable business

An important sign of the normal development of livestock is molting. Cancer throws off the shell, which has become cramped for him, and acquires a new one. Young individuals do this about 8 times a year. In the next 365 days of life, this number is reduced to 5, then to 3-4. The normal rate of cancer growth is about 50-60 g in weight and about 10-12 cm in length by the end of the second year of life.

Additional equipment for breeding crayfish

You can achieve greater efficiency by improving the living conditions of animals. To do this, for example, you can equip the reservoir with an air compressor. The device will prevent stagnation of water in the pond. An oxidizer will serve well. In autumn, the device is mounted at the bottom of natural reservoirs and in winter it saturates the water with oxygen.

For open ponds, stakes and lakes in cold weather, the installation of greenhouses is relevant. They keep warm, maintaining a normal temperature level for crayfish. Farmers also use various filters to keep the pond clean, and polypropylene frames to keep water in the pond.