Selections and spawnings

The last few weeks have been particularly busy.. so much going on that I am maxed out keeping up with it and the blog has fallen a little behind.

I'll expand on the spawning situation in another post, but basically, I've been trying to produce enough hatchlings to fill the top pond with fry one more time. Despite saving my trusty okawa female for this job.. her spawning failed, as did another 2 kohaku spawnings. Then I started to buy more brood stock in an effort to run more spawnings. And basically, as I write.. I am waiting to see whether I finally have a hatch from the final spawning. More on that in a few days, when I hope to have some news.

Today, was all about selections. We enjoyed a visit from Mark Gardner, and after showing him the developments on our farm.. we got on with the main job which was selection of Marilyn's baby kohaku.

We took an hour at the end of the day to review some showa's that I'd put aside in the hope I'd get a chance to review them with Mark. Mark is somewhat the showa expert, and it was fascinating watching him quickly select through the few hundred that I'd put aside and we discussed the different styles presented in the spawning. And Mark picked his top 2, and we then went onto taking short video clips of his top 5 and the next best 10.. So that these showa can be tracked during the next growing on stage.

This was Mark's choice as the best showa prospect from the batch I put forward. He said it was the clear front runner


This was Mark's no. 2




And some video...

The top 5



https://youtu.be/Rjga69SX7R8

The next best 10


https://youtu.be/-Devy94Mf44