Video credit: Ahmed Shaheen (Egypt)

Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Channel founder)

This video was filmed in a commercial shrimp hatchery in Vietnam.

The eye-stalk ablation was commercially adopted in the early 1970s as an effective means in the maturation and spawning of shrimp females.

The eye-stalk is the source of Gonadotropin Inhibiting Hormone (GIH) and hence the removal of one eye-stalk would reduce or eliminate the signals which stop gonadotropins from being produced and so trigger the ovarian development and so induce spawning. This is based on the fact that gonadotropins are essential in sexual maturation.

In order for this operation to be effective, shrimp should be ablated only when hard-shelled, or in pre-molt stage. Shrimp female undergoes eye-stalk ablation often completes its ovarian development and spawn within a period of 3-10 days.