View Single Post
Old 06-05-2004   #31 (permalink)
dick benbow
Honmei
 
dick benbow's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: seattle, wa
Posts: 4,425
Culling fry can involve different methods for different color varietries of koi. For example:

Shiros and showa-first cull at 3 days old
sanke's after a week
kohakus-once a month
yamabuki after two months-same as asagi

if you tell me what your looking for color variety wise I can give you some guidelines.


the mission of a breeder is to get the numbers down as quickly as possible wqith water quality concerns.

with my shiros i was able to get rid of 80%
showas 60%


certainly all things equal to cut your numbers down in half with the first cull is important.


during the monthly culls that follow the initial separation you look for things like body shape, crooked heads or spines, mis shaped fins, intensity of sheen and pattern.

I try and take about 50-125 tosai into the greenhouse in the winter.
I could probably take 250 but I have a point to make and that is I can create quality koi so i really separate hard.

I will try and get some baby shots as they develop. right now I am trying to keep up with the masses and get thier numbers down. most pics right now would show you a yellow or dark fry with no other distinctions. wait till they get up an inch or two and we'll have more of a teaching tool.

meanwhile let me know what your looking to breed/simbetsu
dick benbow is offline   Reply With Quote