
03/13/14, 02:58 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Southern Idaho
Posts: 143
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I went back to the store yesterday after work to see if they wanted more tilapia. The store owner and the meat manager were gone for the day. I didn't see any of the fish that I had brought in. I'll stop back in today to see if they sold them or tossed them out.
This isn't the Asian Food Store that I mentioned before. It's the only locally owned grocery store in town and they like to sell locally produced food in season.
Here is my deal, I rent a small space and have use of some water at a local fish farm. I operate my own little aquaculture business which is totally separate from the fish farm. I have a little bit of extra room at my spot where I can hold about 400 lbs of fish. The owner of the fish farm has given me permission to capture fish from the ditches between the raceways and from the settling ponds, I pay $1.00 a lb. for them. When I have them in my space they are my fish. Our local farmers market requires that the vendors have a hand in the production of their wares. If or when the market manager checks my farm, it will be obvious that the fish are mine and that I am feeding and caring for them. I can capture about 100 or more 1.5 to 2.5 lb. fish a week for a while, without going to much trouble.
None of the tilapia farmers in this area bother to take fish to the local stores. They sell them all live from their farms for around $2.50/lb, 99% go to markets out of state. I would not compete with my friends and colleagues in the tilapia business.
Stocking tilapia fry in local ponds is a good idea except that the season isn't long enough to get them up to more than 7" or 8". Fingerlings might work. The pond owner has to get a pond stocking permit from IDF&G, which shouldn't be a problem since the tilapia can't survive the winter in the wild around here. I would also have to get a Live Fish Transport Permit for each stocking trip. One other problem would be that very few locals even know what a tilapia is.
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