Shellfish

Harvesting shellfish

Mussels and oysters require different growing times to be harvest-ready. When harvesting shellfish, you must keep good records of different batches and their movements and keep produce clearly labelled. 

When harvesting, you need to take care not to re-immerse the produce or get any pollutants on it from the boat. 

Harvesting mussels 

Mussels take 18-24 to grow to a marketable size (a minimum 45mm shell length) and are harvested from late August to April. Harvesting from ropes can be done by hand or with a specialised machine, and mussels too small to sell are returned to the farm to grow out, and dredges are used to harvest mussel bed. 

Harvesting oysters

Pacific oysters will take 2-3 years to grow to a marketable size and native oysters can take up to 5 years. Pacific oysters can be harvested year-round, but it is illegal to harvest native oysters between 1^st May and 31^st August. Harvesting can be done by hand or with a dredge. 

Ethics 

Shellfish are sensitive to temperature changes and physical shocks, such as dropping. You need to follow good practice in handling the animals (see ‘Good practice), so they are not unnecessarily stressed.