Tuesday, October 19, 2010

LARGE SCALE METHOD FOR OYSTER GROW-OUT BAGS

Other countries have been farming oysters a lot longer than us here in the States and so they have some industrial sized operations going on. If you like growing in oyster bags I thought these pictures might give you some ideas of what you could do in the future with a little rebar, some welding, a water column permit, and a whole lot of bags. This is like "rack and bag" on steroids!

Each one of these units is hoisted in and out of the water by crane.

Bags can be placed in rebar containers and then filled with oysters and closed.

Notice the rebar pins that keep the bags in place, also notice the black rubber strap with the "s" hook, it has and end that fits into the hole in the bag but won't slip out, easy to install and works nice...here's a picture of some below...we can get these if you are interested.



Alot of companies, will harvest their markets and then store them in the water until they have an order to fill. These baskets are nice because you can pre-count your product not just pre-sort. Also, check out the triangular basket in the background, it looks like it has a pvc piece running through its center so it can spin around, I'm assuming it is for seed growout...interesting, I'll look into that.
This gives a good view of the feet.

Close-up on the rebar pin(simple) and those bag closures.




Great video of these cages or similar ones at work...and no, this is not a local oyster farm I think its in the UK somewhere...either way cool video...notice its one buoy to several cages, deep water, and they are using the rod to close the bags...can get those if interested.


For all of you who are patiently waiting for bags to arrive the container is still scheduled to be here by the end of October begining of November. We'll post it once they are in.