Welcome to “Troot in the Shed” Project 2012
“Troot in the Shed” aims at making pupils aware of the Brown Trout and Sea-Trout life cycles through presentations and hands-on activities – the highlight of the initiative being hatching trout ova (provided by the Orkney Trout Fishing Association) on the school ground and monitoring the experiment on a daily basis to record the various stages from egg to alevin and fingerling. The four projects are currently run in the Orkney Islands schools of Stronsay, Sanday, Kirkwall Grammar and Dounby Primary.
The “Troot in the Shed” project owes its name to the building where the trout are hatched… There is an already existing initiative across the country called “Trout in the Classroom” but it requires an extensive set-up including a cooled tank costing in excess of £1,000 which wasn’t an option. We have managed here to hatch these trout using very basic materials either in schools already or donated by members of the community and local businesses (thank you Peedie Pawz Pet Shop in Kirkwall for the pumps!), thus reducing cost to a minimum.
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Thanks for your visit.
Mr. Pietri
“Troot in the shed” is now up and running at KGS. Eggs put in tank today. 11 casualties so far probably from transportation and they have been removed. Hopefully rest of eggs fine
“Troot in the Shed 2012” is up and running at the Sanday School too. 3 casualties so far out of about 280 eggs.
Tomorrow, another batch of ova should be flying out to the Stronsay School to get the project started over there.
More on this blog shortly!
We lost another 10 eggs yesterday but only 5 overnight so hopefully not many more dead ones. Thanks to William for counting the eggs today – we seem to have around 800!
Glad the project is up and running in KGS! This morning, Stronsay Junior High received their ova -we haven’t counted them yet – and we removed 5 dead eggs by lunchtime. There will probably be a few more casualties by tomorrow and then things should settle down…
“Troot in the Shed 2012” is now up and running at Dounby Primary! Eggs delivered this morning to a very knowledgeable group of P5/6 children. Not sure how many eggs are there, probable 2-300 and as with the other schools, there will be a few casualities to begin with but hopefully this should settle down. Good luck to Dounby and all the other schools involved.
Hello – Sanday’s ova seem to be doing very well. We had no casualties yesterday or today (but we do have far less than KGS!). The rota is up and running and all the bairns are keen to take their turn.
Troot in the cupboard is now running at Dounby Community School, here’s the link http://trootinthecupboard.wordpress.com/ Thanks to malcolm for coming out and getting the project going.
Delighted to see the project is running at the Dounby school too! Thank you for the weblink, Mr. Forsyth: your Troot in the Cupboard blog is very impressive! Hope your pupils get a lot out of this project.
Pleased to the project up and running any help or support the Orkney Trout Fishing Association can offer give us a shout.. new links to 2012 projecs have been added to the OTFA website
well done
Today in Sanday there was one dead egg. The water temperature was 5.1 degrees Celsius, the air temperature was 4.0 degrees Celsius. And we saw two eggs wiggling! That was exciting.
Frideswide
the troot in the shed is going really well in Stronsay
Thank you for your messages folks!
“Troot in the Shed 2012” is well and truly under way and the ova seem to have settled nicely as there are very few casualties. Altogether, a mere 6 dead eggs on Stronsay and about 10 on Sanday. Kirkwall Grammar, out of about 800 eggs, have had very few casualties. Dounby Primary’s set-up is slightly different and they renamed the project “Troot in the Cupboard” as the tank has been placed in a relatively cool room inside the school. They have lost a significant number of eggs in the first couple of days (27 on the 2nd day) but the ova look as if they have got used to their new environment and losses have dropped. Hope they all hatch and that the fry can be released in the local burns and lochs!
Mr. P
The troot in the shed has come an really well. I have really enjoyed looking after them and i cant wait to see the little alevins. Well i think everybody has enjoyed i think it is a great excperiance.i hope we carry on with this next year too. 🙂
Hi Joanne!
I’m really pleased you’re enjoying the experience and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t do it again next year! We’ll get even better at it as we’re learning a little bit more every year!
Keep up the good work!
Mr. P
All still going well at KGS. Losing the odd egg but starting to see eyes developing so there is life there.
Mr Ewing
the troot in the shed in stronsay is going really well we are seeing eyes in most of the eggs now.
I am really enjoying this project at school and going to see the eggs.
It is fun!
troot in the shed is really fun
Troot in the Shed has been fun-hope we do it next year too.
it good fun and cool to wach them grow up
yesterday there was one dead egg and today was the same at K.G.S
Glad to hear from you all folks and good to see that things are working well in KGS! I did hear that your ova are beginning to eye up, am I right? Can’t wait to see them tomorrow as I’ll be in KGS for in-service.
Keep up the good work!
Mr.P
Would the schoolin Dounby like some sponsorship for the shed?
I can’t wait till they hatch! It will be so exciting!
Antoine,
Les photos de cette année nous semblent plus probantes. Ce qui nous a le plus épaté, mis à part les “yeux des oeufs”, c’est l’attention et le sérieux qui est presque palpable chez les élèves. Ils ont vraiment l’air concentrés et ça fait vraiment plaisir de le voir à cette époque du “zapping” où capter l’attention d’un enfant ne semble pas être chose facile. Nous reviendrons sur vos expériences très bientôt.
Annick et Paul.
The Stronsay eggs are doing well, but had a few dead ones in the past few days.
Thanks for the update Craig. A few dead eggs is ok but keep an eye on the water quality. Check that there’s no build up of algae and keep changing the water with the drum that Keith filled up and everything should be fine!
Mr. P
Hatching has started at KGS. Tank is full of froth and alevins are emerging from eggs.
Mr Ewing
Hello, we have found at least two dozen alevins. no dead eggs either which is a bonus.
Really happy that some of the eggs have hatched, we just put some water into the tank so that should keep the numbers of dead eggs and alevins down.
sume alvins are oot and i think were are a heed o last year am ready for the compitishun
Hi Kevin,
Great to hear from you. You can go and check on the blog in “Troot in the Shed 2011” or go to Categories (bottom right of the screen) and click on “Alevins” – then all the posts relating to “Alevins” will be displayed. You could get back to us and let us know if the alevins have hatched earlier this year!
Hope to read you soon!
Mr.P
its funny it feels like last years hatched later but they hached 1 day earlier they hached on the 14 not the 15 like this years
Good detective work Kevin! I know, I was surprised to discover that they had hatched roughly at the same time last year, especially considering how much milder our winter has been so far! I was expecting the alevins to hatch at least a week earlier than last year.
Things are looking good anyway!
Keep up the good work!
Mr.P
more alvins to day we changed the water and took some photos with mr Pietri we alsow took the tray oot
nearly all the eggs have hatched at KGS we’ve just finshed changing the water in the tank and cleaning the pump. left the tray in pace as alevins are still sitting on it.
Hi boys,
It should be safe enough to remove the tray very gently. Watch out as most of the alevins will be hiding underneath the mesh frame. A good idea is to switch off the pump before you lift the tray, so that the alevins don’t get bashed on the sides of the tank! (Don’t forget to switch it back on after the peedie troot have landed on the bottom)
Keep up the good work!
Mr. Pietri
All the eggs have hatched and everything is fine, no dead alevins so far.
3 dead eegs to day 🙁 but nearl all hached i think. cant wate to release them
there are some alviens on Sanday (as i have heard ) i hope they survive same to all the other schools doing it
Thanks Dunstan, it’s very thoughtful of you. Most of the eggs on Stronsay and at KGS have hatched and are healthy; however, there are no survivors left at the Dounby school as the water temperature was too high for brown trout.
See you on Tuesday!
Mr. P
Sadly, there were 23 dead alevins and 2 dead eggs (plus a woodlouse) at Stronsay School today.However, there are still a good number of alevins left, and we hope that this will not affect them to much. Both water temperature and air temperature were at the highest they’ve been this year.
Hi Cameron,
Thanks for the latest news.
A woodlouse??? What on earth was it doing in our tank? What next? A seal pup? 😉
Seriously, we’ll need to do something with the water tomorrow and change as much as we can.
See you tomorrow,
Mr. P
We have been having major problems here at KGS. I discovered large numbers of alevins inside the pump and many were dead. This has led to a decline in the water quality and with having such large numbers it has been an almost impossible task trying to separate the alive and dead alevins. Today we completely emptied the tank and tried to remove all dead alevins. I reckon we have maybe 100 left so loses have been huge. Our problem has been that when we cover the pump with mesh to stop the alevins getting in then the pump doesn’t work properly and the water quality deteriorates very quickly. Still its a learning curve and we have some good ideas on how to solve this for next year. The lads are very disappointed and a bit down as the project had been going so well. Still we have survivors and that still gives us fish to release.
Mr Ewing
We seemed to have got the situation here at KGS under control. I’ve put in a much smaller pump and there has only been one dead alevin removed today. We seem to have maybe 60 left which is not many but there we go. Hoping to release maybe a week on Sunday at inganess.
Hi Our egg have hatched. I went out today to see them and they are SO CUTE!!
Hi Lauren,
They’re going to get cuter and cuter as they start losing their bellies and slowly become stripy and spotted like real miniature trout!
Keep an eye on them and make sure they stay healthy so that we can release them into Bea Loch!
Mr. P
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Nous avons cru comprendre qu’en certains endroits vous aviez eu quelques problèmes de pompe et que les alevins avaient passé l’arme à gauche; est-ce grave? Toi et les enfants n’êtes-vous pas trop déçus? Tiens nous au courant
Paul.
Oui, c’est tout a fait le cas; c’est au lycee de Kirkwall que Neil a eu des problemes car la pompe devait etre trop puissante et un bon nombre d’alevins ont ete aspire sans qu’il s’en apercoive immediatement. Du coup, la qualite de l’eau a chute et environ 3/4 des alevins sont morts. Mais il leur en reste encore une centaine environ; suffisamment pour relacher dans le ruisseau. Nous allons relacher ceux de Stronsay la semaine prochaine, le 14 mars et ceux de Sanday le 20 mars.
A bientot!
Antoine