Alberta Wilson, Supervisor,
Inverness, MS Hatchery, 493 Million Babies and Counting

As with all creatures born into this world, one of the most critical phases of life is birth. A catfish is no exception and at Harvest Select’s catfish hatcheries in Inverness, Mississippi we have the capability to produce over 50,000,000 catfish fingerlings each year. They eventually grow into that delicious southern food staple known as the catfish dinner.

Brood fish begin spawning in the spring when water temperatures increase to above 70º F. During this time, catfish held in ponds randomly mate and the fertilized eggs are collected from spawning containers and moved to a hatchery. The eggs hatch after 5 to 8 days of incubation and fry are reared in the hatchery for an additional 4 to 10 days. The Fry, as they are called, are then transferred to nursery ponds, where they are fed daily through the summer, and harvested or seined in the fall or winter as catfish fingerlings.

Fingerlings are then stocked into food fish grow out ponds, fed daily on a scientifically formulated grain diet, and harvested when they reach 1 to 2 pounds. Roughly 18 to 36 months is required to produce a food-sized farm-raised catfish from an egg. Harvest Select Catfish food size fish are harvested year-round to meet the needs of our processing plants, so our farm ponds usually contain catfish at various stages of grow out all during the year.

The whole process of raising catfish from eggs to fish is a delicate one and it is vital to the success of any catfish processor’s business. Without catfish eggs there are no catfish and without catfish there is no catfish industry.

No one gives our catfish more TLC than Alberta Wilson. As part of our fish hatchery operation in Inverness, Mississippi, she’s taken on the task of raising and nurturing thousands of catfish during a hatching season that begins in the spring, in March and lasts to mid June.
For Alberta its a labor of love that one could almost call “maternal”. Her attention to detail and her dedication to the job she’s assigned shows that she really cares about getting as many of these eggs hatched as possible and sent on to our grow out ponds where they’ll mature into food size catfish. Not only does Alberta take care of the critical phases of our hatching season but she also makes sure the overall hatchery environment and equipment where our fish are raised is clean and operating properly and efficiently.

Alberta has been employed with Harvest Select in Inverness, MS since 1996 where she is our hatchery supervisor. She’s married with 2 adult children, in addition to her other thousands of “children” at the hatchery during the spring.

Alberta’s job gets busy as spawning begins in the spring and water temperature is a consistent 75º F. Spawning occurs over a period of several hours as layers of adhesive eggs are deposited in spawning containers. Females that range from 4 to 8 pounds typically lay between 3,000 and 4,000 eggs per pound body weight. The percentage of females spawning will range from 30 to 80 percent each year, and depends mainly on the condition and age of the female brood fish and water temperatures during the spawning season. During her employment with Harvest Select, Alberta has supervised the hatching of over 493,000,000 fingerlings.

Nesting containers are checked every 2 or 3 days for the presence of eggs. As eggs are collected from the brood ponds they are placed in an insulated, aerated containers, Alberta takes detailed counts as the spawn are brought in. She maintains the oxygen aeration and levels for our vats as the spawn hatch into fry and will feed the fry when they hatch. The fry must be fed 6 to 12 times a day to ensure survival and growth. Fry are fed nutritionally complete feed for 2 to 7 days before they are transferred to a nursery pond to continue on to their journey as prime U.S. Farm Raised Harvest Select Catfish.

We’d like to thank Albert Wilson for her effort, dedication and commitment to her job. She is a tremendous asset to our company, with a wealth of knowledge about the whole complex hatching process. But more than that, she cares about her work.