CAMBRIDGE, Md. — The squawks and clucks are gone. Splashes of water and the low hum of machinery have taken their place.
The old chicken barn off Castle Haven Road in Cambridge is now raising a different kind of animal: Chesapeake Bay oysters.
The barn is the oyster hatchery for Marinetics Inc., a private aquaculture facility that raises and harvests oysters under the Choptank Sweets and Choptank Salts brands. The company, established in 1996, harvests between a half-million and one-and-a-half million oysters each year.
General Manager Kevin McClarren came to the company in 1999 from another aquaculture facility in New England. There he grew hybrid striped bass, but he had no trouble switching to oysters.
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