Whole crabs sounds kind of environmentally suspect. Crab meal fertilizer would be the dried crushed shell from cannery operations.

It would be a waste of tasty crabs to use the whole thing. :-]

Crab meal is probably made industrially rather similarly to fish meal - with specialized equipment to pulverize, dry, grind into meal and sift. I suppose you could do it by drying in the oven or a solar oven and pulverizing with a blender.

HOWEVER, that's a lot of work, and you can get those nutrients into your garden easier by composting. I've read on this forum that shells (lobster, crab etc.) will decompose in the compost. Put them in the center of a hot pile with plenty of browns to soak up the N and any odors. Turn the pile a few times and voila.

Would it have any effect (good or bad) on the fertilizer to dry and grind up whole crabs? Also, do you think an old clothes dryer would dry them out?

Do you have a fishing license, Andy?

Yeah. Or actually, what kind of fishing license?

I am looking for uses for green crabs. Right now, there is no market here In maine

Ah well, now I'm on board. Green crabs are an invasive species.

I was just slow to accept because the pacific sardine populations were decimated in part to make fertilizer.

I see on that page that looking for green crab uses is doing the good work.

I'd say sun-dry them and then ... I don't know, crush them in a ball mill?

Sounds like you are looking to go low-tech here, which I totally support, along with getting rid of invasives. I don't know about the green crab but we have those doggone jumping Asian carp here in the MO River, and I've always thought they would make great fertilizer.

A clothes dryer...hmm. It might take a long time if they're whole, and you have to watch out for moisture in the works.

I think grinding them up and then drying the 'mash' might be more efficient, if you could figure a way to dry it. Have you looked online for fish meal ideas? Someone might have developed something small scale.

Ah, I find "solar fish driers" on the google.

The clothes dryer idea was a random idea that I got that I realize is a terrible idea. I don't really have took much money for high tech things, and don't even know what I'd buy. What I'm wondering is if I were to either grind up whole crab and then dry or dry first, would that still be good fertilizer? It probably wouldn't be considered pure crab meal, would it? But would it have any bad effects? Good effects? I'm just a little new to fertilizing, it's why I have so many questions.

I don't know what crab meal (or fish meal for that matter) has in it, I would assume it's whatever is leftover after using the meat. Guts and bones then. I don't see any major problem with grinding up crabs and making meal. Why would it *not* be considered pure crab meal?

How about searching for how crab or fish meal is made, and the fertilizer or nutrient content. That will give you an idea of what the NPK value would be and how you should use it.