Montanan launches kiddie-pool shrimp farm
Jim Vaughan, hailing from Mission Valley in the flatlands of eastern Montana, has taken on the unthinkable—raising more than 20,000 white Pacific shrimp in five 8,000-gallon Walmart swimming pools, reports The Missoulian. Vaughan’s brother had started an operation of his own, Cowboy Shrimp Farm, in Idaho after learning about the practice while working as a miner in Indonesia. But a divorce left the shrimp in dire straits; that is until brother Jim took them under his charge in a facility he built in Charlo, Montana, with the help of the Walmart swimming pools filled with salt water kept at a balmy 84 F. His “shrimp barn,” with direct views of the Mission Mountains and herds of grazing cattle, and just a short clip from the National Bison Range, now houses the venture. Vaughan sells the oceanic critters for between $18 and $20 per pound.
