Final push on the expansion before spawning starts
We're in a crucial final stage of the expansion, and butting right up against the start of spawning season..,which I expect in 2 to 3 weeks time... traditionally we start on the first May bank holiday.
So as normal, it's all go here at Byer Koi Farm, and Amanda's 'quiet season' has been anything but! She's been overseeing the guys building our 4 new fry ponds, and this week we have also started drilling a bore hole so that we can be more self sufficient on water.
You can see in the females tank that they know it's spawning season around the corner, and they are looking ready for action. The males too are in a separate tank, and also becoming much more active and they too can tell they will be called to action very soon!
Over the winter we have expanded our brood stock, bringing in an additional female Kohaku and additional male Kohaku to continue to push forwards on my aim to become the 'go to' place in the UK for people to buy Kohaku.
We are also aiming to address the asks of some who have asked to a little variety in our sales tanks, so have brought in some Beni Kikokuryu and also Kujaku to give us a patterned metallic option. the first year I spawn new parent, it's mainly about checking that the koi will actually spawn and that we get fertilised eggs and so on. We're hopeful that at least one of these metallic parent deliver us some babies this year.
We also have the mukashi and karashi females that I tested last year... and the mukashi have been great, so this year we will probably repeat that spawning and I will be aiming to bring through a spawning from the karashi female. I have a sample of her babies from last year and they look fantastic , so when we are ready for a single coloured spawning, I plan to lead with the karashi and this autumn, and if we get it right with that spawning then there could be another 'shooting stars' competition with karashi/chagoi this autumn :-)
I've also been touring the country giving talks, and the last of those was at the Celtic Koi Club. We've also enjoyed visits from West Wales koi club to our farm, and last weekend we entertained the Northern BKKS section.
Here are some pictures from the last few weeks..
The Northern BKKS section visited us last weekend for a tour of our new facilities
beginning the dig of our 4 new fry ponds
our 4 new fry ponds, dug, and just the fencing and other finishing touches to go..
At the Celtic Koi Club, giving a talk about how we developed our hobby into a koi farm business
We've been moving more stock into out new sales building
Sizing and grading koi... Our new sales building has 12 tanks, which means we can keep more sizes and grades separate
One of my tips, located in the 3-4 inch tank... Lots of little gems in there for anyone who wants to go treasure hunting !
And finally, some footage of the mukashi .. now, well into the 30's cm. we also have kohaku from Sharkey 2018 spawning at those sizes and these 'jumbo tosai' are almost ready for selection.. probably in 2 weeks time so that we can have them on sale mid May.
