‘Weekend koi farmer’ : new objectives set
The story so far,
and objectives achieved
Breeding tropical fish as a young boy was surely the start
of my passion for fish keeping, and for the last 5 years I’ve turned my focus
to breeding koi. Such is their glamour
and majestic presentation in the pond; they are often described as living
jewels. And with kohaku as the no. 1
variety in koi’s ‘Go Sanke’, ie the ‘top 3’ varieties; that is where I have
directed my focus. The most popular variety and the biggest challenge.
We’ve been breeding koi for 5 years, and I reflect on the
first year – much experience gained, but after many spawnings and a lot of
effort, we literally had nothing to grow on that winter. And this – our 5th year – we’ve maxed
out the potential of our fry ponds and produced around 100k fry for first
selection. The small 1 inch koi being
the start of our selection process. It’s
been a long journey, and as I write this note and reflect on the journey, our
tanks are full for this winter’s grow on.
I set the 10 year timescale to achieve my objective which is
to be regularly winning placings at competitive koi shows in the small to
middle sizes.
In the last 3 years, we have won 4 baby champions, 1 young
champion and many best in overall size placings in the small to medium sizes
(BKKS sizes 1,2,3 and 4). There have been
numerous placings in size and variety in those sizes and this year, one of our
kohaku’s even placed in size and variety in size 5!
I have achieved my 10 year objective, in just 5 years.
With a secondary project objective to increase interest in
koi breeding in the UK, which I feel would enhance the hobby here…. I’ve shared my journey along the way – the
lessons learned, and the details of how I’ve gone about things – here on my
blog. I have no way to measure exactly
what impact this has had on the hobby, but hope that it’s playing some part in
disseminating knowledge and information to other would be breeders and other
similar minded people who just love fish keeping, and in particular, koi
keeping.
I still believe a greater understanding of how koi are bred,
and the immense challenges involved in that, would enhance the hobby here, and
bring greater recognition to the major breeding feats that are being achieved by
the koi farms in Japan, and the top commercial koi farms around the world.
As part of our breeding process, we also sell on fry and
excess stock and this helps to pay for the overheads of the project. As we’ve improved as koi breeders – the
quality of the koi we release has gone up.
And, so have the numbers. And to
keep our tank space free for the breeding and rearing side of things, we’ve had
to learn how to move on our spare stock too – and with greater volume to move
on, it’s an area we are starting to put more focus into.
When I was in Japan a few years ago, I had the chance to
speak to Saito san, the owner of Shintaro koi farm. It was a hugely helpful chat, and even with
Saito san’s limited English – I was able to show him my blog, and hear feedback
on some of the koi I’d bred. He remarked
in summary of what we’re doing, ‘Weekend koi farmer’ and – that’s about the best
description I’ve heard of what we are doing.
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To help with the workload, it's become a family activity. Here's my eldest daughter helping with a harvest. |
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.... and my youngest daughter helping with feeding the koi |
New headline
objective, and how I plan to achieve it
I am setting a new objective. And it’s a biggie.
My new 10 year objective, starting from now, is to breed a
kohaku that will win a Grand Champion award at a UK koi show (any UK koi show).
If I thought my initial breeding objectives were tough… this
next one is much tougher.
I have a high level plan to achieve that objective, as
follows:
- find a way to rear significantly more fry than we are
currently doing;
- build a new grow on facility dedicated to growing our best
fish after tosai (a GC needs to be at least 75cm, probably more like 80cm+ and
to achieve that, there’s the fairly heady tasks of growing the koi to that
size!);
- build more relationships with people who want to exhibit
our kohaku’s at koi shows; and
- with the increased scale, I’ll need to get better at moving
on our surplus – and this means I need to become more sales savvy, set up sales
relationships in the trade and mature other channels like adding the internet
shopping pages to my blog site.
Updated plan, in a
little more detail
I need to free up more of my available koi time for the
breeding and rearing.
You may remember the last time I needed to free up some time
a couple of years ago, we scaled back from 3 shows a year to 2 shows a
year. And, I am now looking at stopping
all together. This will be a significant compromise for me, because I love
exhibiting my koi and whilst I will lose that enjoyment, I hope to still
achieve the feedback on how well we are breeding koi because I will give other
hobbyists the chance to take some of the best kohaku’s we breed; so they can rear
them, and exhibit them. I piloted the
approach this year – with several great awards being won in this way. That’s given me the confidence to pursue this
approach further. And, it will free up 2
more weekends per year, and also remove the pre, and post show husbandry
aspects too. I’m not ruling out
reversing my decision on this in the future; but for now, we’ll see how it
goes.
Amanda and I are hugely grateful for the support we’ve had so
far; family, friends, hobbyists and the koi industry. Those relationships and the support you have
given us are very important to us.
Nothing’s changing at my end, I still have my day job. But,
I’m dropping the ‘hobbyist’ label, because it’s potentially confusing. And the success we’ve had on the show scene
with our ‘Byer kohaku’s’ demonstrates that we’ve developed past that. Over the winter, I’ll be adjusting the
labelling on my blog and FB page accordingly.
Our new objectives in full are to:
- - Breed a UK bred GC kohaku;
- - Become the ‘Go To’ breeder of kohaku’s in the
UK;
- - Be considered as a great place to buy koi for
showing;
- - Be considered as a great place to buy beautiful
kohaku’s under £200;
- - And to continue sharing knowledge and
information to support the koi hobby.
I plan to continue with my blog, which I love writing and
sharing the story – as I strive towards my next life goal; to breed a UK bred GC.
To those people who are part of the story so far; my family,
readers of my blog and facebook page, people who have bought koi from us, and
those who have also exhibited our ‘Byer kohaku’s’ at koi shows…. Thank you.
We are very grateful for your support, and hope that you will continue
to support us in this next phase.
Adam Byer
Koi Breeder
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