Dean,

It really depends on when you stock them (if the females are berrried (have eggs)), how large the pond is, the amount of good habitat the pond has for them, and numbers and sizes of predators. The formula for that makes my head spin a bit...lol. Here' my example...1/4 acre pond with 100 foot of rip-rap rock along the shore and 2 foot into the water (total shoreline is about 500 feet). This scenario would do well if it was stocked with 6 to 12 full sized berried females in the spring (the only time the local craws, here, are carrying eggs). Each female will be carrying up to 200 eggs which will seed the pond well. I would look for a local place to trap the egg carrying craws and transplant them into your pond. If berried craws cannot be sourced, I would assume (key word - assume) that a 100 or 200 could be stocked anytime. That should allow for enough survival to carry it until next spring's hatch.

Habitat is key! And, I do not advise stocking them until the predator fish are large enough to eat the full grown adults. I learned the above after I overstocked my pond with the craws prior to adding the gamefish. My abundant stocked population of craws grew to be full grown and those few hundred mated and made many more that out grew the gape of the stocked fingerlings. At this point, my small fish had plenty of young craws to eat in spring/early summer, but it would still be a couple of years before the adult craws would become forage for my gamefish. I had too many craws that I believe had contributed to the lack of vegetation and muddier waters.

Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed trapping them, eating them, and giving them away. My pond produces good numbers and sizes of craws. If creating a crawdad pond was my initial goal...I probably would have failed...lol.

Fish on!,
Noel