The Scottish Salmon Lifecycle

Salmon develop through six distinct phases. The Lifecycle takes on average 3 years to complete.

The Eggs

In autumn, the parents are selected from the broodstock cages.  Between November and December, eggs are stripped from the female or 'hen' fish and fertilised with milt from the male or 'cock' fish. The fertilised eggs are then incubated in egg trays in the freshwater hatchery.  

Alevin

From January to the spring, the eggs hatch and the alevins feed from their yolk sack.

Fry

This is the next stage - when they are transferred from the egg trays to tanks and are able to start feeding for themselves.  The fry are held in the tanks within the freshwater hatchery for about four months, during which time they grow to the parr stage.

Parr

The parr grow quickly up to the end of the winter.  Their weight can double in a month.  In the spring, the parr undergo major physiological and anatomical changes (silvery blue colour, streamlined shape) and turn into smolts. 

Smolts

These are young salmon which are ready to migrate.  In the wild they swim downstream to the sea.  In aquaculture, they are transformed from the freshwater environment - in which they have lived and developed since hatch - to sea farms.

Salmon

Once in salt water, the smolts are reared in cages located in lochs and inlets around the Scottish coast. Their balanced diet includes fishmeal and fish oil derived from those same fish eaten by wild salmon.