Can you raise crabs and crayfish in rice paddies? What other small animals can you raise?

China has a vast area of rice paddies, giving it a strong advantage in developing integrated three-dimensional farming that combines planting and breeding! Fish and shrimp raised alongside rice in paddies can control weeds and pests, eliminating weeds and aquatic organisms in the fields, especially many harmful larvae. The activity of the farmed animals loosens the topsoil and promotes the decomposition of organic matter. At the same time, through metabolism, the feces excreted by the animals play a fertilizing role, so that the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is relatively reduced, ensuring stable yields and high quality of the rice, achieving high efficiency, ecology and safety, with a selling price several times that of ordinary rice. The original ecological farming method lets the farmed products grow in a simulated wild environment, so they are of high quality and more popular in the market, increasing income by several thousand yuan per mu.

“Rice paddy farming and breeding” can raise not only fish, but also shrimp, crabs, soft-shelled turtles, loach, rice field eels and Chinese softshell turtles. Come take a look with the editor!

1. Raising fish in rice paddies

Raising fish in rice paddies is a traditional farmland production method in the mountainous and hilly areas of southern China, known as “fish under the rice”. The fish raised in rice paddies are mainly grass carp and common carp, and gibel carp, silver carp, bighead carp, mud carp, crucian carp and common carp hybrids, catfish, tilapia, etc. can also be raised. One mu of rice paddy can raise one to two thousand fish, which grow to catchable and marketable size in seven or eight months, with an average harvest of four to five hundred jin of fish per mu.

2. Raising crabs

River crabs move around and forage in the rice paddies, not only cultivating the soil, controlling weeds, increasing fertility and raising oxygen levels, but also reducing pests and diseases.

3. Raising crayfish

Crayfish can eat pests and weeds in the rice paddies, and their swimming and foraging help loosen the soil, activate the water and aerate it, increasing the dissolved oxygen content of the field water. It is understood that more than 3000 crayfish can be raised per mu of rice paddy, producing about 300 jin of crayfish.

4. Raising loach

Loach is an omnivorous fish that feeds on insects, small crustaceans, tender aquatic plant leaves, as well as diatoms, blue-green algae, green algae, yellow-green algae and zooplankton. It also likes to eat the eggs of rice stem borers and brown planthoppers on rice, helping to control pests and diseases in the rice paddies. Loach swimming up and down in the shallow water of the rice paddy can loosen the soil and promote the growth of rice roots, while the loach's excrement becomes high-quality organic fertilizer for rice growth. It is understood that about 400 jin of loach can be produced per mu.

5. Raising frogs

Farmed frogs have already become a delicacy on people's dining tables, and raising frogs in rice paddies has good prospects. Frogs themselves are the natural enemies of pests in rice paddies. By using this mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship between rice and frogs, rice planting and frog farming are organically combined to achieve increased yields and income and to protect the natural ecological environment.

When farming in rice paddies, pesticides should be used as little as possible; when necessary, choose highly efficient and low-toxicity pesticides and spray them on cloudy days. At the same time, keep the water quality fresh and prevent excessive feeding and fertilization from affecting water quality. In addition, it is necessary to master the farming techniques well, defend against natural enemies and increase output.

Developing integrated rice-fishery farming and breeding not only safeguards the “rice bag” but also enriches the “vegetable basket”; it not only fills ordinary people's “money bags” but also ensures “safety on the tip of the tongue”. One water used twice, one field yielding two harvests, stable grain and increased income, a win-win for both grain and fish.