18.7.11

Some Cod Facts

Some cod facts, this post is dedicated to facts about cod fish, hope to answer some frequent questions.

What do cod fish eat?


One cod fact is that Cod fish are carnivorous they eat other fish like crabs, mussels, clams, herring and other fish. You can tell the cod fishes diet from the state of their teeth. Cod fish teeth's are very sharp, irregular and pointed like in figure. They do not have molar type teeth to grind their food. If the cod has sharp teeth it's probably because they have a diet based on herring and other soft meat fish. The cod fish with dull teeth will commonly feed on bottom ocean floor species like crabs, mussels and clams, whose hardness tend to be abrasive on the fishes teeth.

How big can a cod fish grow?


Interesting cod facts say that Cod fish can grow to be quite big, their are reports of codfish weighing more than 70 kg. The most common size is between 2 and 10 kg, being the more commercial size fish. It takes about 3 years for a cod to reach 2,5 kg in weight.

Cod reproduction

There are International strict laws regarding fishing, which has helped the sustainability of the cod species, each year fishing quotas are defined and rigorously controlled.
Spawning season, is from October to April, some cod swim south to warmer waters to spawn. During this spawning season it's common to find cod in schools of fish. The female may lay millions of eggs in mid-ocean, being that few survive.

Cod Colouring


As mentioned cod may be found at several depths in the Ocean, Atlantic cod will change colours according to the water depth, being that it may assume two different colours: gray-green shade and a reddish-brown shade.

Cod processing

Cod processing is a very tough job. Dressing large cod will require anchoring it by the mouth. Due to these continuous actions safety equipment is essential. The head may or not be removed, for frozen whole cod it's common to be sold H/G, this means headless and gutted. The collar bone may or not be part of the body. When dealing with salted and dried cod, the most common features of the fish is H/G headed and gutted with collar bone.
The raw material to process salted and dried cod may be supplied either fresh or frozen. Although frozen may reduce breakage during processing.
You may also have, line fished cod or trawl (net) fished, when fish are line fished they tend to have less stressful contacts with other fish, making it a prime quality item. The trawl (net) fishing method if not done accordingly can deliver fish with bruised flesh, which gives the end product a dark grey colouring. The on board freezing and handling process is essential to guarantee high quality.