17/06/2012
two videos kindly taken by duggie wallace at the hatchery.
both taken last month.
29/03/2012
Approx 5000 Sea Trout fry are feeding well since appearing from incubator. Every night for the last 3 weeks they swim to the top of the incubator and exit the drum via a couple of 25mm pipes into the feeding tank. The last tray (6000) of the unfed Sea Trout fry have now been released into feeder burns at Lenabo, Culsh, Skilymarno, Old Deer, Stuartfield, Inverqhomery, Grassiehill, Clola and Arnage. Salmon fry have been moved to a feeder tank and should be starting to feed shortly as most of their yolk sac has now been absorbed.
7/03/2012
After 46 days buried deep in the gravel, Sea Trout fry have started to appear from within the incubator drum and made their way into the feeder tank looking for food.
19/02/2012
All Salmon eggs are now hatched and the alevins are approx 2 weeks old. The final tray of Sea Trout eggs are hatching at the moment. Water temp has been 6 - 7 degree's C throughout the hatching/incubating period.
22/01/2012
The first of the Sea Trout eggs have now started to hatch and have been moved to an incubator drum where they will wiggle there way into the pea gravel and substrate until they are ready to feed (swim ups). Approx 5000 Sea Trout eggs have been layed out in artificial redds within a local feeder burn.
Salmon eggs should start to hatch this next week along with more trays of Sea Trout eggs.
27/11/2011
The first of the Salmon have now been stripped as well, the remaining Sea Trout and Salmon should be stripped and returned to river within the next few weeks.
19/11/2011
The first of the Sea Trout have been stripped and the eggs layed out in trays in the new hatchery. Water temp remains at around 8'c, high for this time of year due to the mild spell. Sea Trout redds are also visable on various locations within the catchment.
18/07/2011
Work at the new Ugie Hatchery site is well under way now. The building is nearing completion, trays are in place. A natural spring which supplies year round crystal clear water is connected to a 1000 litre header tank, water then flows to an egg incubator which is in turn is connected to the hatchery egg trays. A number of Sea Trout fry which are now approx 3 months old are currently being fed on with the intension to mark prior to being released later in the year.
11/05/2011
The remaining Sea Trout fry retained at the hatchery have now used up all their yolk sac, "swim up" has taken place and the fry are now feeding 4 - 5 times a day and are full of life. A few weeks ago we suffered some fatalities, we suspect it was due to nitrogen gas bubble due to the long dry spell, having spoken to various experienced parties on the subject, losses are common at this "end of yolk sac" stage prior to "swim up" Simple modifications have taken place to eliminate "gas bubble" from the water feed prior to entering the fish holding tank.
19/04/2011
The Ugie Hatchery Update.
We put in the last of our young fish out last friday. Around 30 000 went into burns on the North Ugie, and about 35 000 went into the burns on the South Ugie. These were all unfed sea trout fry.
Work is ongoing regarding the site for the new hatchery.
We have been doing a lot of work these last couple of weeks.
All of the water pipes are now all in place, and we anxiously wait on the arrival of the digger to start work on getting the new site all ready for the new hatchery. looking good.
15/03/2011
Sea Trout eggs at the hatchery are now starting to hatch, cold winter weather has kept the water temp lower than normal for this time of year, thus slowing down the process.
24/03/2011
The majority of the 70,000 eggs are now hatched, in 3-4 weeks time when their yolk sac has been used up, swim up will take place and they will be looking for food. At this stage, the alevins will be distributed to Ugie feeder burns within the catchment that showed the least numbers of fry and parr at last seasons electro fish survey.
2010 Revision
Hatchery News Update:
At the end of November, a total of 34 Sea Trout (24 hens & 10 cocks) were successfully stripped and returned to the main river. The majority of these fish were donated by anglers from as far back as June. The condition these fish were in when stripped was remarkable to say the least. Approx 65,000 eggs are now layed out in trays awaiting hatching, this process could be slightly longer than normal due to the low water temperatures of late.
2009 Revision
Due to the high water levels after the 2009 season closed we were unable to catch sufficient brood stock for the hatchery programme to go ahead over the closed season.
Approximately 50,000 un-fed Sea Trout fry were released into the Ugie feeder burns in early 2009. Over the last 6 years approximately 250,000 un-fed Sea Trout fry and 700,000 un-fed Salmon fry have been released into the system.
