How Do River Shrimp Survive the Winter? A Detailed Guide to Overwintering Management

River shrimp have delicious flesh and are highly popular on the market, but winter is approaching, so how do river shrimp survive the winter? Let's take a look below.

1. How do river shrimp survive the winter?

Wild river shrimp hide under aquatic plants to overwinter in winter. If they are farmed river shrimp, good management work must be done for overwintering, including temperature, feeding, water level, preventing natural enemies, and preventing ice formation.

2. Points to Note for Overwintering

1. Water area conditions, pond overwintering: choose a pond that is regular in shape, sheltered from the wind and facing the sun, with a water depth of more than 1.5 m and more aquatic plants, to provide good insulation conditions for the shrimp to overwinter.

2. Stocking density: select large shrimp with a robust constitution, complete appendages, and standard body shape. The size of female shrimp is 140—500 tails/kg, and the size of male shrimp is 140—240 tails/kg. Females and males are paired at a ratio of 2:1. For every sq m, 30-60 g of juvenile shrimp with a size of 2000-3000 tails/kg can be stocked.

3. Daily management: during the overwintering period, shrimp still need to eat a small amount of food to maintain life and meet their physical consumption needs, so bait should be fed in an appropriate amount. In clear and warm weather, feed once every 2-3 days. The bait should be small in amount and refined. Commonly used items include small trash fish, silkworm pupa powder, crushed snails and insects,  wheat bran, and so on. Each feeding amount should be controlled within 1% of the body weight of the overwintering shrimp and crabs.

4. During the overwintering period, persist in patrolling the pond, regularly add water, and maintain the water level. In particular, prevent attacks by enemies such as water rats and water birds. In addition, in the severe winter season, prevent the pond water from freezing. If the ice is too thick, break it or make holes in time to avoid shrimp suffocating to death due to lack of oxygen.

In winter, the shrimp shed should not be opened easily. In winter, the food intake of river shrimp will decrease, so feeding should be reduced.