Coleman National Fish Hatchery

         What an awesome Federal facility this is. Born out of the need to save the salmon that Shasta Dam had killed because of river blockage, Colman is one of 17 national hatcheries.

          This is one of the incubation rooms that has hundreds of egg trays where the eggs grow thru filtered water for up to 80 days before they can be mouth fed.

The sign says it all. The jar looked to be about 1 1/2 gallon jug.

The first raceway after the fry drops it's egg sack is indoors for protection. This raceway has nearly 900,000 fry.---------

            Once the fry reach the size of a small finger they are first placed in a raceway until, because of growth, the population of one raceway must be split in into two raceways...each containing about 450,000 fingerling's each.

Terry is explaining the whole process to Donna and I. The employee's were all so informative and friendly.

This is a portable fish sorting and fin clipping trailer.

          Inside the trailer, they fin clip 25% of the stock and this machine sizes and sorts the fish while sending the fingerling to the cutter.

The little ones on their way to the equivalent of a circumcision.

Three of the four fin clippers at work.

This is their journey, minus the glass jars ...I hope.