Raising crawfish in a dedicated pond

We have a little square pond we built that we pump water into so the cows have water. I was thinking about putting crawfish in there so that they can reproduce and can be harvested and introduced into our big tank as additional forage.

Has anyone ever tried this?
What forage would the crawfish require?

We once had crawfish in our large tank. How they got there no one knows.
We went from nine to seeing shells on the dam.
I think birds brought them in.
There was a bad drought and we lost them and the Shad population.
We did not lose the other fish however.
My guess is that when the water receded the bass and catfish ate up the remaining population.

Many years ago I visited a commercial crawfish operation near Kaufman to learn more about raising them for food. They gave a very good tour showing all the aspects of growing them all the way to harvest and purging for the table. Not sure if they are still there, I never persued the idea.

Never tried it myself, but would certainly be interested in your results.

Under the old rule of thumb of 10 pounds of forage to get 1 pound of weight on a LMB, it would take a lot of mudbugs to make a difference. They naturally exist all over East Texas in yards, pastures, showing mounds any time there is moisture in the ground. They are omnivorous and will eat just about anything.

My biggest concern about bringing in some is the possibility of getting the burrowing type which can do substantial damage to pond dams...not worth the risk to me.

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