yabbie breeding

[TUFLUX]

i asked a friend if i could stock his 20m x 20m dam with yabbies, and he was all for it, so before i began stocking it i wanted to see what was in there, had a few pots in over night and got a few small ones all about the same size and a few big ones about the same size too, so it looks like there is a few in there and they are breeding ok, problem was there isnt many in there coz i got 10 all up with 5 pots, i know of a few dams around that are chockers of small yabs so i went out today for 30 minutes and mangaged to get about 50 odd, and released them a short time later are catching them, im after any tips for improving the breeding population in the dam as next year they should be some size for the table, i did abit of research and they suggest 100 to 1000 to start a breeding program? i also wanted to know if i hould be chucking food in as im unsure what food is in the dam,

any tips will much be appriciated, thanks

[hitman087]

Yabbies will literally eat anything. Any rotten decaying plants, animals, algae.....they'll eat it. I've kept them in tanks before and fed them carrots, bloodworms and they even used to pick off my sick fish (last one killed my bass after it got a bit ill) so they are dead easy to feed.
As for breeding, not too familiar on the subject but they do breed like rabbits

[TheBream]

yeh also kept them before and i like them as a pet (beats the hell out of any other fish i have had)

breeding is not that much of a problem but one thing that is a great help to them is some structer for breeding (well less about breeding but more for the female to hide when full of eggs)
some sunken timber is great but the old teracota pot plant pots with a bit taken out of it and upside down also works a treat as does some pipeing
pretty much something for them to hide under and feel safe

as for a feed well you can get yabbie food but things like carrots and other vegies work great

i would be thinking the lack of yabbies and small size may have to do with not much cover for them so the large ones will pick off the smaller ones
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[TUFLUX]

i was thinking that every time we have carrots are home ill chop the peelings up and throw them in the water, my plan is to always try put a few in every week for the rest of the warmer days, only yesterday i found out how to identify the males and females apart so i guess ill see how i go when i start to catch them in there. im going to try put all the females back in when i catch them

[Karpfen]

Does the dam have any Fish or turtles in it?

Turtles will trash your yabby population

[TUFLUX]

[Karpfen]

They should do ok then, just saying if there is heavy predation then your population will be low. Cormorants will hammer them too.

Keep putting them in I'm sure they'll come on eventually

[doddsj]

G'day,

For the yabbies to thrive they usually need some sort of food and cover. In Farm Dams where i have located larger numbers of yabbies thay have ususlly had some form of plant growth such as weed or Rushes. Others have had overhanging trees which drop leaves etc. into the water giving them food in the form of rotting vegetation. I seem to remember somewhere reading that putting hay or straw bales into the water helps with cover and feed.

Cheers,
Steve.

[Timbo45]

My brother throws a hay bail into his man made lake every now and then,
he also has reeds and rocks....we stocked it when he first made it with
9kg's of yabbies from a yabbie farm, they where about as big as your thumb,
12/18 months later he had some absolute " bulldozers" in there !
We also fed them chicken pellets for the first 12 months.....
He still gets a great feed out of the lake.....no fish or turtles that we know
of...
Tim....
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[pale ale]

My grandfather had his best yabby dam close to the farm house. When he mowed the lawn, he would spread the lawn clippings around the waters edge and the yabbs would crawl out at night time and drag it into the water.