Sunday 13 October 2013

Yabby Dabba Doo

Never let someone else's expectation be your limitations. Life on the land is the title but that doesn't limit me to the land. We also farm the water sources we have on the farm, which is approximately 58 dams. We've never branched out into commercially selling our dam produce but it's on the cards. The infamous Yabby, Gilgie (pronounced joog-ee), or Koonac is what I'm referring to. The freshwater crustacean of Australia, I won't get into the delectable Marron here!
So what's the difference between the three? Primarily Yabbies are lighter in colouring than a Koonac or Gilgie but that's not a scientific way to identify them. First you check for ridges on the head; four (normally only two are visible) means a Yabby or Koonac, five (and all of these will be visible) means a Gilgie or Marron. 
To determine between the Yabby and Koonac check for claw shapes. The Yabby will have large elongated claws with a 'hairy' elbow, the Koonac will have broader oval shaped claws (and will generally be closer to black in colouring). 
To determine between a Gilgie and a Marron check for spines on the telson (the centre of the tail) and the rostrum (the point at the tip of their head between the eyes). Spines means a Marron, no spines means a Gilgie. If you're keen on more info have a look here: 
http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/Fishing-and-Aquaculture/Aquaculture/Aquaculture-Management/Pages/Farming-Yabbies.aspx
So what am I doing with our Yabbies? I'm fishing out our nursery dam and spreading them into male dams and more breeding dams. Separating the males off means they grow to a larger size. This is great for two reasons, selling them or eating them. The larger the claws the better the feed! I will make a disclaimer here, I don't particularly enjoy eating them au naturale but pan fried or with the right sauce they're the perfect entree. Plus it never hurts to have a feed of Yabbies for the boss! There is a theory that you can grow males and females out to a larger size together if you put them in a salty dam as it prohibits breeding, however, I don't specialise in this field so don't quote me on it. You want some pictures right? Ok! 
These are the easiest traps to use:
If you're doing it right you'll end up with a trap full like this one, hopefully slightly larger ones if you're not at a nursery dam.
So you've pulled a bucket full of Yabbies, what now?
Now you sort them into edible or non-edible sizes. The small ones are then sorted into male and female. At least that's what I'm doing at the moment. 
This is a male. Males have slight protrusions on the base of their hindmost legs. Zoom in and you'll see them.
This is a female. They don't have the hind leg protrusions and they have dark circles on the third set of legs counting from the hindmost legs. 
This is how the females carry their eggs, be sure not to eat these ones, they're the money makers!
Depending on the dam you're trapping you'd want the edible ones to have claws maybe a third larger than this one. Sometimes the claws have brown tips and sometimes blue like this. They generally tend to take on different colours depending on the water they're in. So you've sorted into your separate buckets? Now you release into your chosen dams. 
Be sure to choose ones with minimal bird life or you may find claws littering the edges of the dams.
If you're wanting to eat the tasty critters the best method we've found for cooking them is straight into boiling water, it must be boiling beforehand, and then time it for around 3 minutes 40 seconds from the point that the water reaches boiling again. You can put them in the freezer for half an hour to stun them but this method is relatively instant. If you have a weak stomach you may want to stop reading here...

If you're brave try the freezer tactic, use a good sharp knife and slice them in half from head to tail. Remove the head and pan fry in butter and garlic or a garlic, chilli, lime & brown sugar dressing. Absolutely delicious!

The best bait? Well that's entirely debaitable... I couldn't resist. Generally we use dog biscuits. Mulies work as well but the fastest way I've found to fill a trap is to twitch a section of a chicken carcass to the base of the trap with wire. The bones will be stripped clean and you've caught them in no time at all!


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