# how many times do crawfish mate?



## dht (Dec 25, 2011)

Hello all,i have had success with crawfish mating and hatching eggs,but what i don't understand is I see my two adult crawfish mate all the time. I have seen them mate 3 times this week.Does it not take the first time? just curious.Please leave your comments on the matter. thank you in advance.


----------



## welok (Jul 20, 2015)

I'm not sure what type of crayfish you have, but the following is true for the ones that I have. I have crayfish of the Procambarus variety (both alleni and clarkii).

Crayfish take about 30 minutes to mate. If anything interrupts them during this time (or the female gets away from the male), he will try again later. When they successfully mate, the male inserts a sperm plug into the female, which she will later use to fertilize each egg individually. If there are multiple males in the tank capable of mating, the second male will remove the existing sperm plug and place his own, so you might be seeing a different male trying to pass his genes on instead of the one that previously mated. 

In my breeding tanks, I have 1 male and 3 females. Unfortunately, I cannot tell one female from the next, so I cannot tell if he is mating with the same one repeatedly or not, but I have seem them mate for 5 minutes or less, then a day or 2 later, the male is trying to mate again. In my case, me walking by was enough to interrupt them, so the male tried again later.


----------



## BabyGirl77 (Jul 24, 2015)

The answer to your question as to how many times do crayfish mate, well...........................................as many times as they want to. LOL


----------

