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Farm Profile
Our farm is a total of 10 ha just outside the picturesque town of Atherton. We maintain our own brood-stock and produce juveniles for growout all within our own farm. Breeding occurs in designated brood ponds in early spring. Berried females (mothers with eggs) are then put into our juvenile ponds where the little crayfish will hatch (10 mm long and 0.02 g in weight) and grow till they are about 5 cm. These young juvenile will then be distributed in our growout ponds where they stay until they are at a marketable size (from about 70g to 200g). The whole process from breeding till market size takes about 12 months.
We have 38 earthen ponds that are filled with pristine water from our natural spring; add some limestone, a dash of magnesium, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and a good helping of hay - this is all that is needed for growing clean healthy Redclaw. This also encourages the natural ecology of the pond to develop (plankton bloom) providing much of the nutrition for the crayfish and giving the water that characteristic “green water” look, hence our name “AquaVerde”. |
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Once growout is completed redclaw are generally harvested by means of a flow trap. A flow trap exploits the redclaw’s natural behaviour of walking against water flow. This is achieved by filling a large container with aerated water that overflows down a ramp into the pond.
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The redclaw instinctively walk up the ramp and fall into the container, from where we scoop them out. They then will be sorted and graded and placed into clean and fresh water for purging. After a minimum of 24 hours they are ready for sale.
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