Category Archives: ova / eggs

ova / eggs, Stronsay

Troot in the Shed 2014 starts at the Stronsay School

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The Lower Primary pupils

Around 150 brown trout ova arrived by plane on Stronsay this morning and after a presentation on the trout life cycle, the Secondary 2 pupils helped to transfer the eggs into the tank.

Following a quick check, we noticed that 4 eggs were already turning opaque instead of the usual healthy clear orange and it was decided to remove them to prevent fungus from developing. They must have been shocked during their journey from the Kirbister Loch hatchery to Stronsay.

Then, the Upper Primary and the Lower Primary children also had an introduction to the project and visited the mini-hatchery where hopefully, in a few weeks, alevins will have hatched…

More to come as our ova develop!

Mr P.

ova / eggs, Sanday

New batch of trout eggs for the Sanday School

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trout ova tank hatching
First check on the new ova!

Sanday received their ova on Monday morning and I’m glad to say that in spite of gale force winds and a rather bumpy flight on the small Islander plane, the ova completed their journey in very good condition.

When the first team of monitors went to check the tank this morning, there were no casualties. Accompanied by Irene at break-time, Charlie, Fraser and Sam checked that the pump was working, recorded air and water temperature (5ºC),  checked for dead eggs and noticed that most ova already showed signs of life as their eyes are clearly visible.

Let’s hope that the success rate is as high this year as it was during “Troot in the Shed 2013”!

Hopefully, we’ll hear from Mrs Muir’s class shortly on this blog! 😉

Mr P.

ova / eggs, Stromness Primary

Welcome to Stromness Primary!

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M. Thomson explaining the trout's life cycle to Mr Taylor's class.

Yesterday morning, Stromness Primary school joined the “Troot in the Shed” project for the first time.

Malcolm Thomson visited Mr Taylor’s class and introduced the pupils to the life cycle of the brown trout and sea-trout. They also were able to have a good look at the 100 or so trout ova collected earlier on in the morning from the Orkney Trout Fishing Association hatchery . The children will now have to make sure they  look after the ova the best they can, by removing dead eggs and monitoring water temperature in order to be able to release the juvenile salmonids in a nearby burn by the end of March.

Mr P.

North Walls, ova / eggs

“Troot in the Shed 2014” underway at North Walls!

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Thanks to Mr. Erskine who braved a force 8 gale yesterday morning during his crossing to the island of Hoy, the North Walls school was able to kick off the project.

About 200 eyed ova  are now being looked after by Mr Stout’s pupils and should be hatching during the first week of February, if the temperatures hold.

No later than this morning, I received an email from North Walls, including a lovely report from Matilda along with some photos:

Troot in the shed

On Wednesday 22nd of January, Mr Erskine came to North Walls to tell us about troot in the shed.

First of all he split us into groups. Group A was the people that hadn’t done the project before and group B was the people who did it last year.

After that the 2 groups went to different tables to look at the displays. Group B went to the table about sea troot as they hadn’t done it before. Once we had looked at all of the display, group B did a quiz about troot while group B watched some videos.

It took Group B quite a while to finish the quiz so group A learnt how to remove dead eggs from the tank using a turkey baster.

When both the groups had finished their activities, group A went into the library to read about fishing. Once they were out, Mr Erskine showed the older ones some real troot!!! One of them was cut open so we could see what a troot’s guts do. Group A got curious so they came in. But by the time Mr Erskine opened the troot’s stomach most of them felt quite sick!!!

Mr Erskine then gutted the troot and Mr Stout said maybe we could eat one of them!!!!

We had lots of fun learning about the troot and we can’t wait to start the project!!!

Matilda

Dissection of a brown trout

Practising removing a dead ovum with a turkey baster

Alevins, North Walls, ova / eggs

Troot activities at North Walls!

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These are the beautiful photos I received  yesterday from North Walls. Adele, Andrew, Ben, Cameron and Molly to name but a few, explained how they used the data from their mini-hatchery to produce graphs during maths classes and how they managed to take those great shots by using a microscope linked to a laptop. Details of alevins are very difficult to capture but the North Walls pupils, thanks to a very clever use of ICT have managed to produce these during a science class.

Apart from studying the alevins closely, they’ve also done a very good job at looking after their ova as they only lost about 10 since the project  started.

Congratulations to them and their current  teacher Ms Allen!

Photos taken by the North Walls pupils.
Alevins, General info, ova / eggs, St.Andrews Primary

WARM WEATHER WARNING

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After the St. Andrews incident which wiped out all the alevins, and some concerns from other schools regarding the rise in water temperature caused by a few warm sunny days, Mr. Erskine, who has been overseeing the project on Hoy, has come up with a few simple steps to cool down the tank and prevent water quality from deteriorating; here they are:

KEEPING THE TANK WATER TEMPERATURE LOW

Ideally, the tank temperature should be less than 7C and never allowed to exceed 10C.

On sunny days, the shed temperature will be higher than the outside air temperature, due to heat transfer from the walls and roof. Opening the shed door and windows will keep the tank temperature down. Wetting the shed floor and the sides of the tank will also help. Windows which are not facing North should be kept shaded from the sun.

If the temperature is very high, ice made from bottled or burn water could be added to the tank, keeping it as far away from the ova or alevins as possible. The pump should be kept running to avoid water much colder near the ice.

To calculate the amount of ice needed:

Measure the length and breadth of the tank and the depth of water in centimetres.

Multiply length X breadth X depth to obtain the volume of water in cubic centimetres.

Then, assuming that the ice is at freezer temperature of -18C:

Divide the volume by 98 to calculate the weight of ice in grams needed to lower the water temperature by 1C.

For example:

V = L x B x D

= 60 x 40 x 20

= 48000 cubic centimetres

48000 / 98 = 490

Add 490 grams of ice to lower the temperature by 1C.

Once all the ice has melted, another batch could be added. Try to lower the temperature in 1C stages to avoid thermal shock.

ova / eggs, Stronsay

Stronsay news…

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Just off the plane with the precious cargo...

For the third consecutive year, the Stronsay School are running their mini-hatchery. I bet Arna and Wilma, our cordon-bleu school cooks whose freezer shed is shared with our ova, wouldn’t mind a couple of trout to spice up school dinners but unfortunately, they never get the chance to see them grow big enough…

When it comes to looking after the ova, the Stronsay school is “a well oiled machine”!  and Steve, our janitor, takes the younger pupils at every break to remove casualties and monitor water quality, temperature, etc… and the older pupils keep a watchful eye and are ready to swing into action in case things don’t go according to plan! Since last Thursday, when the eggs were delivered, only 4 dead eggs have had to be removed.

Keep up the good work up there!

Mr. P

ova / eggs, Sanday

Sanday school up and running!

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Mrs. Muir explaining the tank monitoring process.

Today, the Sanday school received 119 ova from Swannay Loch brood stock. After a car journey from the Kirbister hatchery to the airport, a flight on board the Islander plane to Sanday and a short run on the minibus to the school, only one single ovum didn’t make it alive to the tank!

Class 2 were given a presentation on the sea-trout and brown trout life cycles and it was good to see that the young captive audience had remembered so much from last year’s Troot in the Shed programme. Such words as ova, alevins, spawning, obscure as they might be to most people, had no secrets for our pupils. They were also shown various clips of trout embryos wriggling in their shells and sea-trout spawning in the shallows. A big thank you to Mrs. Muir and Claire who are actively supporting the project with the monitoring of the mini-hatchery. And I was going to forget… Another big thank you to Mrs. Newton for providing us with the tank water, but not any water… Roo’s Loch premium water which we hope will give our future alevins the best start in life!

Hope to hear from the young folks on Sanday whose contribution was much appreciated last year.

Mr. P

ova / eggs, St.Andrews Primary

Eggs delivered safely at St.Andrews Primary

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Very tidy set-up at St.Andrews Primary!

St. Andrews Primary received their trout eggs today! A big thank you to Sandy Kerr who delivered the eggs and who had to drive all the way from Stromness, with a detours through Orphir and the Kirbister hatchery in very wintry conditions! He was met there by James Harcus who helped selecting the ova. Once at the school, Sandy was welcomed by Mr. McIntosh’s class who were eager to get the project started! Staff and pupils were delighted with Sandy’s presentation about the trout life cycle and some only realised then, that their school is trategically located between two very important sea-trout spawning burns. The eggs were transferred safely into their new location for the next couple of months: Conrad, the school’s janitor, had carefully set up the tank and the place looked like it had just been polished! A great attention to details has gone into the preparation and even the Holm gravel which covers the bottom of the tank has been sterilised with Milton! All the conditions seem to indicate that the project at St. Andrews should be a great success! A big thank you again to Sandy who was glad to share his expertise.

Hope to hear from you shortly.

Mr. Pietri

General info, North Walls, ova / eggs

Troot in the Shed 2013 starts off at North Walls!

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North Walls pupils in "the Shed"!

Thursday 17th January saw the first trout eggs delivered to North Walls Community School. Jim Erskine, who has trained generations of Orcadian trout anglers, gladly took on the challenge of transporting the fragile cargo from the Kirbister hatchery to the Hoy school and explained all the mysteries of the trout life cycle to a captive audience. The journey can be a perilous one as the ova can be very vulnerable at certain stages. Once at the school, Jim was welcomed by a very enthusiastic group of pupils and staff who had prepared themselves for the demanding task of hatching eggs into little alevins and then releasing them in the local burn. If all goes well, the next two months should see the eggs, first showing eyes and then hatching into translucent orange alevins which will be losing their yolk sacs after a few weeks, ready to be released by mid-March.

Looking forward to reading how things are going!

Mr. Pietri