*Salmon eggs (roe) hatching. Photo: Arnt Mollan*

Roe are round, orange salmon eggs the size of a small sugar cube. It is the female salmon that lays the eggs. The male salmon fertilizes the eggs with milk (sperm). This is called spawning. The salmon lay eggs in the fall. The eggs are buried in the river gravel all winter. In the spring, the eggs hatch.

Salmon eggs are triangular in shape and have a beautiful orange color. For fish eggs, they are large - about the size of small sugar peas. Large salmon have larger eggs than smaller salmon. A medium-sized female salmon lays about 1,450 eggs for every kilo she weighs.

The roe is placed in a spawning pit, which the female salmon digs. She uses her tail to dig and her gill fin to measure the correct depth. The toughest male salmon is immediately in place and fertilizes the roe when the female releases the eggs. The female salmon quickly covers the eggs with a layer of gravel. It is important that the gravel is the right size. There must be enough cavities so that oxygen-rich water can flow in to the eggs. The largest female salmon dig the deepest spawning pits, and the largest male salmon fertilize the most eggs.

The roe shell is transparent and soft. As early as February and March, the eyes of the fry inside the roe are visible. This is when we call the roe eye roe. Hatching takes place in early spring. Roe in rivers in the south of the country hatch before roe in the north.

Roe is a nutritious food. Eggs that are caught by the current and do not end up in the spawning gravel quickly become food for birds and other fish. Insect larvae down in the gravel eat some roe throughout the winter.

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