Brief Account of Crayfish, harvesting, preparation, selection, measurements and packaging.

Hello friend's good evening my friends, as a graduate of marine biology who ventures into crayfish business, I will be providing us with insight about crayfish which is one of the major seafood I trade on. I was at the riverside today to buy my crayfish.

Firstly, crayfish is a seafood fished within the Nigeria coastal waters and West Africa. Crayfish is also called dried shrimps. It is commonly found in both coastal and estaurine waters. Typical crayfish species found in freshwater are the Macrobranchium macrobrachion while the one found in marine waters are Panaeus notialis (spp) etc.

crayfish seasons: Crayfish availability depend on factors such as temperature, rainfall, salinity etc. Crayfish are usually scares from November to March when water level and factors drop. It's always available during July to October due to effect of natural factors like flooding, nutrients availability etc.

Crayfish Harvesting/Net Mesh: Crayfish are usually harvested with local net. The net are of various mesh sizes. Crayfish is harvested locally by artisans using seine net of mesh size of 3-10mm.

Crayfish Preparation: Immediately after harvested, I wash it, dried locally through firewoods oven about an hour, I will spread it to get cooled by air and then package it in bags of various size either half, quarter, full bag for sales.

Selection and Measurements: After preparation, I ensure my crayfish are carefully selected to remove any dirt or by catch from the crayfish. This attract my customers and make my crayfish neat. Immediately after I selected the chaff/dirt's, I measure the crayfish using a custard pail to know the exact number that equate amount bought and to determine the profit.

Packaging After I finished selecting and measuring my crayfish, I package my crayfish in a customized thank you nylon bag and then displayed it in my shelf for customers sales and marketing. Some are spread on top of table for easy identification and marketing. I sell a custard pail of my crayfish at the rate of 15,000 naira today. Here are some samples of my crayfish.