How much money can you make from cultivating 20 acres of lobster?

Current situation: Only about 30% are profitable

Since 2006, Ningbo native Zhu Gangyao started raising crayfish in a 30-acre pond in Jiangbeizhuang Bridge. Yesterday at noon, when reporters came to his shrimp pond, he was shaking a special cloth banner to drive away birds that stole crayfish. Zhu Gangyao invested more than 100,000 yuan in the shrimp pond, and his shrimp pond has been profitable since this year. "Although I have made some money, the market competition is fierce and business is not easy to do." Zhu Gangyao told reporters that he is currently planning to transform into agritainment. The reporter learned that near Zhuangqiao, the situation like that of Zhu Gangyao is considered very good among farmers, but the efficiency of most farmers is not ideal.

“I thought crayfish were easy to raise and would be easy to sell, but I didn’t expect it would be so difficult.” Last year, Mr. Chen, who is in the transportation business, saw that the crayfish business was booming, so he invested in Jiangshan Town, Yinzhou District. More than 1 million yuan was invested in cultivating crayfish. Unexpectedly, it has been almost 2 years. Not only has the investment cost been far from being recovered, but we have to continue to invest in buying feed, strengthening shrimp ponds, etc. "With so much money invested, it's impossible not to raise them, but I don't know what will happen if I continue to raise them." Mr. Chen said that many of his friends around him also raise crayfish, and some have already begun preparing to raise them. The pond changed hands.

Since 2006, a craze for crayfish farming has swept across Ningbo. In just two years, many new crayfish breeding ponds have been built in Ningbo. A crayfish dealer jokingly said: In the past two years, as long as there are concentrated ponds, there are always people raising or preparing to raise crayfish, and people engaged in the crayfish breeding industry come from all walks of life, including those engaged in foreign trade and those who open factories. It is worth noting that Ningbo’s rapidly heating up crayfish farming craze has not produced corresponding benefits. Industry insiders conservatively estimate that about 70% of Ningbo's crayfish farmers are currently losing money.

So, how profitable is cultivating crayfish? According to industry insiders, the cost of breeding mainly includes the cost of shrimp ponds, buying seed shrimp, labor and feed costs. If the culture is done properly, the cost of buying seedlings and shrimp ponds are all one-time investments, while crayfish mainly rely on the natural resources in the water. The cost of feed is not high when eating bait, and the efficiency of crayfish can reach up to more than 50%.

Reason: Many technical problems have not been solved

The reporter learned during the interview that the main reason for the loss in raising crayfish is that the breeding technology is not up to standard. "It's not easy for crayfish to survive. If you put 100 brood shrimps down, it would be good if 60% can survive. This is something we never thought of at the beginning, and these problems are difficult to solve." Mr. Chen, a farmer, told reporters that the loss of crayfish farming is Especially large, egrets, eels, and fish will all eat crayfish, and crayfish will also kill each other. In addition, crayfish are also prone to illness.

“The efficiency of breeding is not ideal, mainly because there are many problems in breeding technology that have not been solved.” Yinzhou District is one of the earliest areas to develop crayfish breeding, the person in charge of the Yinzhou District Fishery Technology Management Service Station He told reporters, "Many farmers have consulted us because of dead shrimps, but because there are many unresolved problems in crayfish farming technology, we can't help much." The person in charge said that Yinzhou local There is a company that exports a large amount of crayfish every year. It once planned to breed it on a large scale. In order to break through the breeding technology problems, they also invited experts from the province to study together. However, in the end, they could not solve many problems and failed to make breakthroughs.

On the one hand, crayfish farming technology is immature. On the other hand, the quality of local crayfish also affects its sales. "It's hard to sell locally farmed crayfish in Ningbo now, not because the price is high, but because many restaurant owners don't want them." Mr. Liu is a crayfish trafficker who has been engaged in freshwater fishery business for more than ten years. He told reporters that he has twenty or thirty business cards of local crayfish farmers in Ningbo, all of whom hope to sell crayfish through him, but so far, few have cooperated. "The meat of locally farmed crayfish in Ningbo is relatively loose, and many restaurants with high quality requirements for crayfish are unwilling to buy it."

"It is not that there is no market for locally farmed crayfish. Nowadays, restaurants in Ningbo sell crayfish. , There are many food stalls, so as long as the breeding is successful, sales should not be a problem," Mr. Liu said.

Manager Jiang of the Yinfengshui Freshwater Wholesale Market told reporters that local shrimps have their own advantages. Generally, after August, shrimps from other places suffer from large transportation losses due to the hot weather, while local shrimps are guaranteed to be fresh because of the short transportation distance. , so the advantages are very obvious. According to reports, when the weather is the hottest, the transportation loss of crayfish can reach up to 30%.

Suggestion: You can try raising crayfish in a small area at the beginning

“Many people think that crayfish grow up in dirty ditches. They have strong vitality and can be raised as long as there is water. It is not easy to get sick. In fact, this is a misunderstanding, because crayfish are prone to diseases when they are cultured on a large scale." Zhao Jianmin, executive deputy secretary-general of the Jiangsu Xuyi Lobster Association, said that the crawfish farming craze has continued to heat up in various places in the past two years, especially in Hubei. , Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other places are the most prominent, but because the breeding technology is not up to standard, breeding losses often occur. As the capital of lobster, Xuyi County, Jiangsu Province, has been farming local crayfish for 10 years, but the farming technology is not yet fully mature.

Zhao Jianmin reminded not to blindly get involved in crayfish farming because of its high profits. First, you should ask professionals to check and choose a qualified breeding water body. Then you must fully master the crayfish farming technology. It is recommended for first-time investors. Trial cultivation in a small area first, and then expand the scale after success to avoid large losses.

According to industry insiders, lobster yield per mu is closely related to stocking density, breeding environment, feeding amount, disease control, etc. To raise crayfish, you must first choose a pond with a good water source. The coverage of aquatic plants in the pond should be 30% to 60%. Lobsters raised solely on feed not only have a low survival rate, but also have poor quality. Crayfish have not yet broken through the barrier of artificially bred seedlings. Farmers should be careful when purchasing seedlings and do not trust hybrid species easily. Although crayfish are omnivores, whether they grow well depends on their protein intake. They can mainly feed on fresh small fish and field snails, supplemented by plant feeds. It is not suitable to feed rotten animal and plant feeds. In addition, shrimp ponds must be disinfected regularly, usually twice a month.

The above is for reference only!