Here is a message sent to me from Kyle at Habitat NOW. It contains some direct information about how he handles and ships the scuds. I sent Kyle a link to this discussion about his scuds. And this was his reply to me.
Kyle says: "" Also, I noted on the bottom that I have a couple of gallons left that I can ship out if anyone is still looking. Thanks for the info...alot of good reading.""
""1 gallon of shrimp - not like the fella from Iowa stated, we strain the shrimp from the water and then pour relatively pure shrimp into a 1 gallon measurement...we then add the water back after measuring the gallon of shrimp. We are not selling you water. There is obviously some wetness to the shrimp but we try hard to make sure you get alot of shrimp.""
""Shipping - We add enough water to manage for the trip...it comes out to about 2 gallons of water to 1 gallon of shrimp. These are bagged and packaged with O2. BZ didn't have far to go with his shrimp so I just bagged them up.""
""* The more water we add...the higher your shipping cost is since you will be paying to ship water rather than shrimp. (smile)""
""* There are expected casualties. There are many variables that are out of my control once the shrimp leave my store. How they are handled, how long it takes to deliver, did the driver get lost, did they put the shrimp on the wrong truck...etc., etc. I hate these variables but there is nothing that we can do about them but accept the expected loss of some shrimp.""
""* Shrimp are only dead if they turn bright orange. The ones laying at the bottom that are not moving but are gray in color are alive...they just need some TLC to get going. From the reports back it sounds like our shipments are doing pretty good so far. Even if you lose 5,000 shrimp in a gallon, you still have around 15,000 or more still alive.""
""* Shrimp are sensitive to low O2, high Ph, silt and pesticides, etc.. Most critters are sensitive to all of these as well. I would then look at solutions within the watershed to reduce these problems. The fella with the farm field photo...I would recommend some CCRP CP21 and CP27/28 buffers strips through USDA. These programs pay VERY well and you will have enough money to buy some more shrimp. (smile)""
""* Fathead minnows are tough on shrimp when the shrimp are in the young stage...they are small and readily eaten. Not so much when they are bigger. That is also the importance of vegetation to allow cover for the young to survive and developed. If you have fatheads in your pond, you can still have shrimp...just don't have expectations for high survivals...but you will have some.""
""After trying to read all of the posts...it obvious there is alot of passion in your activities. Very enjoyable to see that.""
""I have a couple of gallons of shrimp in the tanks right now that I could ship out Wednesday for Thursday delivery or ship Thursday for Friday delivery. Go to the PLM web site at
www.HabitatNOW.com and then to the Habitat Outlet Store to check the pricing for shrimp and delivery to your location. If that looks reasonable, call me at 320-760-9355. If there are other questions, I will be happy to discuss.""
I will say that there were a tremendous amount of scuds in my shipping conatiner. Many more that I received from other places. You do get your money's worth when you buy scuds from him.
