Freshwater Shrimp Farming - Calculating Profit Potential
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
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Freshwater Prawn And Shrimp Farming
Calculating profit potential from freshwater shrimp farming is a matter of starting with your gross income and subtracting all of your expenses. Here is how you do it and some of the items you need to consider.
First, you need calculate how many pounds of shrimp you can grow in your pond or tank. Once you know how much shrimp you can grow, you need to know how much money you can get for them. Once you have those figures, you can calculate your gross income. Let's talk about how to gauge how much you can get for your shrimp.
The last time I went to my big box grocery store, they had Thailand farm raised headless shrimp for $14.99 a pound. We shouldn't use that price per pound in our calculations because we have to account for the weight of the shrimp heads. We can guess-estimate the weight of the head to be one fourth the weight of the whole shrimp, and I might be wrong there, so that's a variable that needs to be verified.
If headless shrimp go for $14.99, then we can guesstimate whole shrimp might go for 75% of that, or $11.24 a pound. That just sounds a bit high to me and since I like to round down, my guesstimate will be $10.00 a pound for shrimp right out of the pond, on ice and in a plastic bag. Multiply your yield in pounds by this delivered price of $10 per pound.
To arrive at a potential net income from raising your shrimp, you will need to deduct your expenses from your gross income. Net income is the number you get to pay taxes on. Coming up with your list of expenses is the hard part because your costs will be different from anyone else. Actually, paying the taxes is the hardest part.
There are two kinds of expense categories to consider. One category includes your set-up expenses and the other category includes your ongoing expenses.
Set-up expenses are things like installing the pond and buying your equipment. You might need nets or an aerator if you are going to use one, water meters and other equipment. This will be your largest outlay. You may already have a suitable pond, or you may want to use an above ground swimming pool in a building you can heat. So you will have to get these costs nailed down.
Ongoing expenses include items like the cost of purchasing your juveniles each year, the cost of their feed, electricity, labor, and not least in importance, the cost of the sign you put out front letting potential customers know when harvest day will be.
Once you have these added up it's a simple matter of subtracting your expenses from your gross income and arriving at your net income before taxes. May your net income number always be large.
Calculating profit potential from freshwater shrimp farming is a matter of starting with your gross income and subtracting all of your expenses. Here is how you do it and some of the items you need to consider.
First, you need calculate how many pounds of shrimp you can grow in your pond or tank. Once you know how much shrimp you can grow, you need to know how much money you can get for them. Once you have those figures, you can calculate your gross income. Let's talk about how to gauge how much you can get for your shrimp.
The last time I went to my big box grocery store, they had Thailand farm raised headless shrimp for $14.99 a pound. We shouldn't use that price per pound in our calculations because we have to account for the weight of the shrimp heads. We can guess-estimate the weight of the head to be one fourth the weight of the whole shrimp, and I might be wrong there, so that's a variable that needs to be verified.
If headless shrimp go for $14.99, then we can guesstimate whole shrimp might go for 75% of that, or $11.24 a pound. That just sounds a bit high to me and since I like to round down, my guesstimate will be $10.00 a pound for shrimp right out of the pond, on ice and in a plastic bag. Multiply your yield in pounds by this delivered price of $10 per pound.
To arrive at a potential net income from raising your shrimp, you will need to deduct your expenses from your gross income. Net income is the number you get to pay taxes on. Coming up with your list of expenses is the hard part because your costs will be different from anyone else. Actually, paying the taxes is the hardest part.
There are two kinds of expense categories to consider. One category includes your set-up expenses and the other category includes your ongoing expenses.
Set-up expenses are things like installing the pond and buying your equipment. You might need nets or an aerator if you are going to use one, water meters and other equipment. This will be your largest outlay. You may already have a suitable pond, or you may want to use an above ground swimming pool in a building you can heat. So you will have to get these costs nailed down.
Ongoing expenses include items like the cost of purchasing your juveniles each year, the cost of their feed, electricity, labor, and not least in importance, the cost of the sign you put out front letting potential customers know when harvest day will be.
Once you have these added up it's a simple matter of subtracting your expenses from your gross income and arriving at your net income before taxes. May your net income number always be large.
Steve Frost loves shrimp. He first became interested in raising shrimp when he found an old discarded hut tub shell on his property. For more information, articles and videos about freshwater shrimp farming go to his website, http://www.freshwatershrimpfarming.com