Selections weekend - day 1

The task of selecting through the fry from last weekend’s harvest is hanging over me. There are so many to get through and it’s such an important task to complete and getting it right and getting on with it quickly lays the foundations for the rest of the summer growing period.

I’ve made a start during the week- grabbing the odd half an hour, or hour here and there. The long evenings are helping in that regard up to around 9pm, when the light fades and the fish aren’t sufficiently illuminated for me to be able to selection properly.

Each short session nudges us towards the end target – but no doubt that this weekend and probably most of the following weekend is our chance to get through it.

And today, I made a big dent on the selections - getting through around 20k fry; that's one of the three cage nets of fry we have from last weekend's harvest.

And, I was joined by Mark Gardner today ; he's spent the last few months in America at Purdin Koi Farm, and arrived back in the UK just a couple of days ago. I got a text from him on Friday night - anything interesting going on at your place this weekend, he asked. And a few hours later - we have an honoured guest for today's selection :-)

It was great to catch up with Mark, and hear in more detail his exploits at Purdin, and how much he's enjoying the koi farming work there. And, he was a massive help today, getting through a big chunk of the selections.

here are some of the picks from the May #1 spawning selection today:






The photos haven't come out that well unfortunately, but give you a general sense of things.

The 1200 or so fry I selected from the May #1 spawning harvest a couple of weeks ago, are doing really well in the growing on pond. They’ve noticeably grown, and are straight onto the food at every opportunity. A few more weeks and these will be ready for 2^nd selection!

In the selection I did today with Mark, there were some fish from the May #1 spawning - these were the few that were left in the top pond after we harvested it the first time; and they continued to grow well in the pond, along side some thousands from the May #2 spawning that we added to the pond a couple of weeks before the final harvest.

Here's some of the picks from that May #2 spawning selection today:

Again, the pictures didn't come out that well, and the video might provide a better reflection:


YouTube video link - click here

I also started our mid-summer spawnings this weekend too. And and I've gone with 'sharkey' for the female, and my matsue males. It would be at most, 10 weeks since we last spawned sharkey, so it's a little bit risky but with such great results from her spawning last year, I need to give her another run out to see whether we can salvage getting some fry from her this year too.