| Luke the word breeder is a very lose word if you ask me. Just about anyone can be called a breeder. I have seen a lot of breeders over the years that use junk that should have been culled years ago, and they use them to breed with. Do we call they guys breeders? I don't, well yes I do. But we call them more of a back yard breeder. In the US about 99% of them are back yard breeders. A back yard breeder has no idea how to cull or what to look for in a koi. The only thing they think about is MONEY. The question a lot of them ask them selfs is, can I add this deformed koi to the bag to make up for a good koi? They seem to think so. I got some domestic koi last year that about 5 out of 50 should have been culled a long time ago. But some breeder think others might not see it or say something about it. Out of that shipment of about 400 koi, 50 or so went into the trash that I wouldn't sell to a pour sole. Will I buy from this person again? Hell no, because they don't care about the hobby or the people they sell the koi too.
I can only think of two US breeders that I would really call breeders. Brett and Brady would be the two. We all know them because of what they do.
So are we talking about US breeders or Japanese breeders. Most of the Japanese breeders we all talk about are known because of great breeding with great breeders, not deformed koi as breeders.
Tom |