Prawn Farming - Imported Prawns

[bigmack]

Prawn Farmimg - guys I dont know if any of you have ever been tempted (or family or friends) to buy something called Vannemei Prawns from Woolworths or Coles.....................if you have you need to know that these prawns are fully imported from Asia and are farmed under chicken farms (chickens sitting on wire mesh) so the prawns feed and grow on chicken sh&t and anything else that falls through. These prawns are now being renamed as Tropical Whites as amrketing exercise to dupe the unwary buyer.

I have also been told that some prawn farms - even in Australia have been know to feed the prawns on fertilser (bags of chicken sh&t). This was the guts of a letter in the Sunshine Coast Daily from the local Seafood Austhority yesterday.

Apart from the obvious health issues and the imported part - I would be touching it for quids.

Cheers
BM

[DICER]

Prawn Farmimg

Apart from the obvious health issues and the imported part - I would be touching it for quids.



Would be or wouldn't be, would be the question.....

Interesting story....

[bigmack]

Hey Dicer - brain working faster than fingers can type - WOULDNT BE touching them with a brage pole - yeeuck. When you think about all of this - its probably only the tip of the iceberg. What is fed to the stuff that we eventually eat.

Cheers
BM

[GBC]

Brings to mind a thread a couple of weeks back where the virtues of fish farming were being expounded.......
These prawns are also dipped in sodiummetabisulphite, which is now outlawed for the pros here due to health issues. It leaves a slighty steely(metalic) aftertaste and is used to prevent blackspot.
Count me amongst those who won't eat them.
Which leaves me wanting to eat prawns and having to live with trawlers in the backyard, reminds me of a post about mud island.

[INDULGENCE]

Dont want to start a riot but why dont you
ask "A Current Affair" about these prawns having bird flu
You may not be aware that the imported nile perch so often passed off in the supermarkets as barra also grows in these same ponds.

Wally

[cabfisher]

Hi all. Just have to stop and Think Just what do Prawns feed on in our Bays ? do you realy know and Crabbs and Fish for that matter .
I am not a interested Party, But when I hear and read the storys about Imported Prawns Ect lets not forget what most sea food is made up of Do you realy know?
And some of the prosess foods Come on now dont be nieve.Why even the vegs grow better if they are Fertilize
Some of you guys realy make me wonder . LOL LOL LOL

[Duyz72]

I wouldn't buy their days old frozen prawns from Coles or Woolies anyway, you might as well buy their smelly, glazed and sunken fish at the same time.

[banshee]

Chicken shit never tasted so good! Seriously,like the local Seafood Authority(Commercial Fishers) haven't got an axe to grind with their competition,and of course they don't serve up thawed prawns do they?The best prawns I have eaten came from the Jacobs Well prawn farm,pity the Hawians are giving him top dollar for them or coles and woolies might be able to serve them up.

[ssab1]

if you dont like whats fed to the prawns you definitely wouldnt like whats fed to the chickens we eat .i built a feed rendering plant for chook food you really dont want to know what goes thru it. :-X :-X :-X :-X ;D

[cabfisher]

Hi bid mack where did you get this story from and do you have any interest in the Prawning industery

[jaybee]

There was a story in the paper not all that long ago about the imported prawns from S. E. Asia stating that the amount of antibiotics that is being fed for them has not yet been tested to see if it is safe for human consumption. apparantly it is higher then any other dose fed in fish farms here.
cheers
Joe

[bigmack]

No interest in the prawn industry myself. I live in Mooloolaba, amateur fisho - just an interesting story and the fish and shellfish served up in the supermarkets looks sick anyway. Myself - i like prawns that come in from the local trawlers. To me its all a bit crook - like making people believe that heavily marbled grain fed beef is good for you. I like free range stuff thats been eating grass or free range stuff from the ocean. No wonder man will kill himself with chemicals or an outbreak of something that we cant cure, that was a by product of something we fed or invented.

Cheers
Phill

[bigmack]

CABFISHER - we are not being naieve -

Most seafood is made up of natural product ie the large fish eat the big fish eat the little fish eat the tiny fish, the crabs eat the deadfish and the prawns live of the weed & stuff in the lakes and the estuaries. It was all natural and untainted until modern man started buggering around with things and had little regard for what feeds us and how we feed it. if you start feeding un natural stuff to animals that aint supposed to eat whats put in front of them - then expect the worst to happen to humankind.

All of the strange incidences of diseases crossing to humans from animals comes from intensive, non natural, false feed farming for pure financial gain. Some where a long the way someone forgot to tell everyone what sustainable farming means.

Thats why the majority of the fishos will fight for the protection of a natural resource that we have left - its fairly pure and you know its relatively unaltered by human hand. (Heavily polluted water being the exception of course)

Cheers
Phill

[bigmack]

OH CABFISHER - one more thing..............as I said in the first post to start the thread. The story was in the Sunshine Coast Daily last week.

Cheers

[cabfisher]

Hi #all just had a big feed of these yummy Prawns from Asia bought in Wollworth @ $9.50 per kg first class and if they can produce them so far away and sell at this price how come we are asked to pay so much for the local product?
Cheers Harry

[jaybee]

Harry its all very political. Most of our fleet is tied up due to increased fuel costs and lower costs of the imports, which by the way are coming into this country at the farmers loss (not really there government subisises them) our farmers are on the way out and now our fishing industry, sounds like a new world order to me. but i could be wrong. when one reads that we produce 3,500 tonne of farmed prawns and import 35,000 tonne one has got to wonder, especially when our farmers have to plough fruit and vegies back into the ground because of imports. it sure helps howard with his ir reform. told u it was political.
cheers
Joe

[nils_desporandum]

as for the imported prawns being fed on chicken shit-thats bullshit
but as most ausfish members seem to be against pro fishing the only prawns available would be the ones you can get in your cast net
the same as you all catch your own iqf pillies
so this year put your money where your mouth is-----------
eg NO PRAWNS AT XMAS

[seabug]

If you thought those prawns were raised rough,have a look at the article in the Bull##in about the Pacific Dory that is on special in the pubs now.

Or put Pacific Dory #Basa #Vietnam #into Google Search

UGH!

[major-defect]

Hi all. Just have to stop and Think Just what do Prawns feed on in our Bays ? do you realy know and Crabbs and Fish for that matter .
I am not a interested Party, But when I hear and read the storys about Imported Prawns Ect lets not forget what most sea food is made up of Do you realy know?
And some of the prosess foods Come on now dont be nieve.Why even the vegs grow better if they are Fertilize
Some of you guys realy make me wonder . LOL LOL LOL
I agree cabfisher.Is there that much difference between them eating chicken shit or fish shit or ours(sewerage effluent).

[Leo_N.]

I would like to add a few truths here. First up I am now involved actively in commercial aquaculture after being in R&D aquaculture and aquaculture teaching for the last 4 years. As such I feel that I know a thing or two about aquaculture.

My commercial interest may turn some of you away from believing my opinions, but I am more interested in getting the full story more widely appreciated than lifting commercial images.

1. The chicken shit that is added to these ponds is not a food as such, but a way of fertilising the pond (N, P, K and C addition) so that algae bacteria blooms can grow. It is the resulting bacteria which provide a lot of food for this particular species of prawn. And yes I would be concerned about fecal coliforms but I am not sure if they reach high enough levels to be a real concern.

2. Imported prawns do often have much higher anti-biotic levels than Australian farmed prawns because antibiotics are cheap in SE Asia. I do not know of any prawn farmers in Australia that use antibiotics. They are simply too expensive to be economical. In my travels in Sumatra I found that antibiotics and carcinogenic chemicals were very prevalent in aquaculture (mostly fish).

3. By far the majority of black tiger prawns eaten in Australia are farmed. In fact the total demand for prawns in Australia far exceeds what is caught from the wild and if we didn't have farmed prawns the price would sky-rocket. Also those cleverly marketed Crystal Bay Prawns are just a trademark for farmed banana prawns. Very tasty, but still farmed for all of you that don't like that sort of thing.

Cheers,
Leo

[szopen]

Leo,

As far as I understand chicken sh!t used as a pond fertilizer would qualify as an organic fertilizer so if no antibiotics or other chemicals were used these prawns could be classified as organic food. ;)

The way I see what is happening and what is discussed recently (there was a thread about the government buying back 600 pro fishing licences) imported seafood proportion of the total seafood in Australia will grow.

With the demand growing and local supplies limited this is the only thing that can happen.

[Custaro]

My concern would be the level of mecury in the water for SE Asian aquaculture. I think they still use it over there for mining gold.