Assured quality, reliability and optimum size all year round.
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At Seabait Ltd. we grow the worms under controlled conditions, giving an assurance of quality that is not possible from wild grown worms.
They are fed daily with a specially produced, biosecure feed. They grow in water which is monitored for temperature, oxygen content and other essential parameters.
In the wild, ragworms breed once during the spring and then die. We have developed and patented techniques to extend the breeding season of the ragworm, thus giving a stock of breeding worms throughout the year. After having been assessed for maturity, the eggs are artificially fertilised in our laboratory and grown to the post-larval stage in the hatchery, before being stocked out in juvenile beds on the farm.
Because production and harvesting are not affected by tide, weather or season, Seabait ragworms are consistently available at optimum size and quality all year round. |
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The ragworm, Nereis (Neanthes) virens (also known as 'sandworm' or 'clamworm'), is a free-living marine polychaete found on the Atlantic shores of North America and Northern Europe.
It is extensively used as a fishing bait by millions of sea anglers fishing from the shore or from small boats. It is also a highly nutritious feed used with fish and shrimp broodstocks in aquaculture.
It feeds by scavenging and will eat live or dead organic matter of animal or plant origin. The worm can grow to over one metre in length but is more commonly used as bait at a much smaller size. |
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A mature female ragworm can contain more than one million eggs.
Ragworms breed once in a lifetime and then die.
Seabait Limited produced 70 tonnes of Seabait ragworm in 2004/2005.
In the wild the Ragworm population breed just once a year, at Seabait Limited they breed once a week.
In 2004/2005 Seabait produced 150 million larvae. |
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