Many of us prefer to purchase female shrimps as they can reproduce and carry about 20 eggs at a time when they are berried. But here is why some male shrimps are more costly than female.

While it is great to see your berried shrimps release their eggs and see tons of shrimplets in your tank. Most professional breeders would pay a premium price for an extremely solid male shrimp. The reason for that?

A male shrimp could pass on it’s good genes to many female shrimp at a time, and that could save a breeder a lot of time!

Here is a graph of a male shrimp, passing down it’s genes to 3 female shrimp. Let’s just assume you have spent $1000 on a good solid male.

And assuming that this male got the three female shrimps berried within 3 days. In 25 days time when the female releases their eggs, and assuming that each female releases 20 shrimplets, you would get 60 shrimplets with the genes of the good male in just 25 days time.

Now let’s turn it around and see what happens.

Now again, let’s assume you have spent $1000 on a good solid female.

A female shrimp could only be berried one at a time, and now it has gotten berried with one of your male shrimps. In 25 days time, and assuming that your female would lay 20 eggs. You would still just get 20 shrimplets at the end of the cycle with the genes of the good female shrimp.

I hope this information helps in your planning when purchasing shrimps. This is also one reason why adult shrimps are more expensive than juvenile shrimps is because they can be sexed. Juvenile shrimps are usually too small to tell if they are male of female, and hence they cost way much cheaper than an adult shrimp.

If you have any questions regarding this, feel free to drop me an email at demin@madshrimp.com.

Happy shrimping!