(Usually when we buy oyster seed we're buying single seed. this means they have more food, so they grow faster. The nursery system, aka FLUPSY, lets us keep oysters in tanks with water flowing continuously through them. We have a nursery system, so we're able to buy very very small seed.

We don't have a hatchery at Hama Hama - instead we buy oyster seed from other companies, usually Taylor Shellfish, Hog Island, Coast Seafoods, or Goose Point Oyster Company. If you've ever found a Hama Hama with a rock attached to it - it was likely born in the wild.Ģ) We grow oysters from seed. However, sometimes wild oysters turn into pebble sets - which we can sell as singles. Usually, when oysters reproduce in the wild, they grow into oyster clusters, you can read about that process here. How do we farm oysters? Two ways.ġ) We make our beach as hospitable as possible for wild oyster reproduction. So every day, our farmers bring oysters in from the beach, spread them out on a table, and sort them into different size classes, including the 'market ready' oysters - or those big enough to ship to restaurants.īut we're getting ahead of ourselves. If you get too many grunts in the bunch, they take up more and more of the food. The oyster at the top of a pile has more access to current (and therefore food) than an oyster in the midst of the pile. We call that last bit 'sorting the grunts from the runts.' Oysters grow at different rates - sometimes this is related to genetics, but most often it's simply a matter of food availability. So you gotta stay on your toes.Īnd by 'handle oysters,' we mainly mean: rinse them, agitate them to strengthen their shells, and sort them by size. Growth rates are site specific, vary seasonally, and change year to year.

the faster your oysters grow, the more you'll need to handle them.

Part of art of growing oysters lies in timing your interventions to match their growth rate. Our farm interns often say that their main takeaway from their internship is that oyster farming is a ton of work. This is not to say that we don't handle the oysters a lot. Oysters and clams are definitely animals, but shellfish farming is unlike any other form of protein production in that it consumes no fresh water, uses no chemicals or added feed, and requires little daily intervention. Rest assured: we don't actually grow vegetables. We buy oyster 'seed' and we 'plant it' on the beach. As we talk about our farm operations, you'll notice that much of the language we use makes it sound like we're growing plants.

Where to buy oyster spat