How to Keep Blue Crabs Alive

Storing Them in a Cooler

Buy a cooler. Buy a regular sized cooler from your local depot or sporting goods store. If you are planning to store more than five crabs, it is recommended that you buy a larger cooler. This way you will not need to stack the crabs on top of each other. Alternatively, you can use a wooden bushel basket to store the crabs. This method is ideal for commercial Watermen.

Layer the bottom of the cooler with icepacks. This will keep the temperature around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. A temperature cooler than 50 degrees Fahrenheit will kill the crabs. You can place a moist towel over the icepacks to keep the cooler moist and to prevent the crabs from becoming too cold. Alternatively, you can place ice, covered with a moist cloth, at the bottom of the cooler. However, you will need to drain the water from the melted ice periodically. Any standing water can cause the crabs to suffocate. Do not put ice or ice packs on top of the crabs.

Cover the cooler with a moist burlap bag. This is to ensure that the crabs stay moist. If blue crabs are not kept moist, their gills will dry out, and they will die. It is recommended that you use a burlap bag because it allows oxygen to pass through. The crabs need to be well oxygenated in order to stay alive. Place the cooler in a dark, shaded area away from the sun. This will also prevent the crab’s gills from drying out. Blue crabs can live out of the water for up to 24 hours as long as they are kept cool and moist.

Storing Live Blue Crabs in Water

Buy a standard five-gallon bucket. Drill holes into the sides and bottom of the bucket. The holes need to be big enough to allow water to flow through, but small enough to ensure that the crabs cannot escape. Alternatively, you can buy a specially designed wooden box to store the crabs in. This method is ideal if you live near the water where the crabs were caught. If not, use the cooler method to store the crabs.

Place a mesh lid on top. Go to your local hardware store and buy wire mesh. Take your mesh and bend it over the top of the five-gallon bucket. Staple the sides of the mesh, that overlap the top of the bucket, to the sides of the bucket. When you buy the mesh, the dimensions should be at least one inch larger than the size of your bucket. Use a heavy duty staple gun to fasten the mesh to the sides of the bucket.

Feed them once or twice per day. If you are storing live blue crabs in the water, you will need to feed them. Adult blue crabs will eat oysters, hard clams, dead or live fish, crabs (including blue crabs), shrimp, organic debris, aquatic plants, and the leaves and shoots of sea lettuce, eelgrass, salt marsh grass, and ditch grass.

Keep them cool. Keep the crabs cool and moist in a cooler or bushel basket. The optimal temperature is about 50 degrees fahrenheit. Any temperatures colder than that can kill the crabs. Do not refrigerate them. Because the temperatures in a refrigerator are too cold, refrigeration will kill blue crabs.

Allow crabs to warm to room temperature before cooking. Chilled crabs will be in a dormant state and can appear to be dead. Before cooking, let the crabs warm to room temperature. The crabs will become animated once they are room temperature. This way you can tell which crabs are alive and which crabs are dead. Never cook dead crabs.

Creating a Stress-Free Environment

Limit shaking. Stress can also cause blue crabs to die. Once dead, blue crab meat is mushy and unsuitable for cooking and eating. Too much shaking can stress blue crabs. Therefore, avoid shaking your cooler or bushel basket while storing and transporting the crabs.

Keep them in one spot. Dumping or moving the crabs from one storage space to another can cause stress, as well. Try to store the crabs in one spot. If you need to move the crabs from one cooler to another, do not dump them into the other cooler all at once. Place them one by one into the other cooler.

Don’t pile them up. Piling blue crabs on top of each other will also cause undue stress. To avoid this, have an extra cooler or bushel basket handy in case you run out of room in your first cooler or bushel basket.