Transporting crawfish in a car for several hours - smell

When I have them shipped online, they are on ice and taped pretty heavily in the styrofoam cooler and it doesn't stink real bad. As soon as you cut the tape though, the smell is real. Surprisingly, not as many dead ones as I expect every time.

quote:

---

they are on ice and taped pretty heavily in the styrofoam cooler

---

This is what I'm curious about. It seems common practice is to keep the lid of the cooler open however I have also heard they do fine with the lid closed on ice...so is the lid cracked necessary or is it just being overly conservative with trying to keep them alive?

quote:

---

This is what I'm curious about. It seems common practice is to keep the lid of the cooler open however I have also heard they do fine with the lid closed on ice...so is the lid cracked necessary or is it just being overly conservative with trying to keep them alive?

---

They pretty much have the tape creating a seal around the whole opening when I get them. I am not sure how soon after they put em on ice that they seal them, but I've not had issue with receiving them. Maybe ping lacrawfish.com or cajuncrawfish.com on facebook and see if they will respond to any questions for help.

I saw a bunch of people the other day just throwing the sack in the trunk of their cars.

No icechest, no plastic wrap, nothing. Blew my mind.

I put a sack in an ice chest, wet a towel and placed on top, then placed a bag of ice on top and left the lid cracked open to drive from BR to Birmingham. Never smelled. Stopped a few times to and let water drain if needed.

I've gone to Houston with them on ice....with no problem
You need too include in your post when you are going...hours on the road

Yes you are overthinking it OP. For a couple of hours, like 5 hours or less just put them in a cooler on ice. The more room in the cooler for oxygen the better. Whole lobsters are shipped overnight all the time in a sealed cooler. I have no idea how much oxygen lobsters and crawfish use, but it’s not a ton.

When they ship mine (overnight) they pack in a styrofoam ice chest and put about 4 of those frozen gel packs in with them. Then they tape the lid on the ice chest with packing tape.

By the time I get them (roughly 19 hours after being picked up by FedEx, the gel packs are defrosted but still cold)

As said before, I’m always amazed at the small amount of dead ones.

for 1-2 sacks, follow the ice chest method and you should be fine. The scent will linger some with the lid being cracked. I have transported 300-500 lbs of crawfish in the back of my wife's suburban from Lafayette to College Station - 5 hours. A tarp was place underneath and wet towels on top. Windows were rolled down 1/2 way to rid the smell. The suburban wreaked of crawfish for 4-5 days as the Mrs. was not to pleased. Since then, I've used a truck and placed in bed with ice and towels