A small crowd came to the farm last friday to see the koi from the 555 Event harvested.

The pond was a small challenge due to the duckweed covering the pond. It took a some extra time to get the duckweed cleared enough to get the koi out of the pond.

Koi Coming out of the mud pond

After harvesting earlier in the week koi that went to the mud ponds as Jumbo Tosai, the first appearance of the 555 Event koi, seemed small.

But, once unloaded from the transport tank into the show tanks it was easy to see the growth of these koi. Going in to the mud at only 7-8inches, this koi has a good growing season and the average size at harvest is 14-16 Inches – just the size Mat hoped they would be.

With so many koi and the delays with the harvest, we weren’t able to photograph all the koi harvested that day. After the koi settle in to the greenhouses, Mat will start photographing the koi.

We will be contacted all owners of the 555 Event koi with the results.

Thank you to Kavent Bwint for these pictures..i will be sharing more pictures that Kavent took over the harvest weekend.

Thank you to everyone who came out this year to see some of our top Koi being harvested from the mud ponds.

For all of you that were here, you know how fun and busy the weekend was.

We are one our last day of harvested the larger females. Today, is the last pond of Nisai to be harvest. Next week we will return to harvested the rest of our tosai ponds, hopefully before the cold really sats in.

We will be sharing the harvest experience on the blog for those who were not able to make, as well, updating everyone who had koi growing here.

But, since today we have to get back out to the field, i will share some photos from those who attended the harvest.

Darren Lucas of Nature Touched Ponds, has posted ALOT of photos from the weekend on his facebook page. Thank you Darren for allowing us to share these with everyone.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Natures-Touch-Ponds-LLC/148055731919164

Yesterday 50 of the 2010 jumbo tosai were harvested. The koi went in the pond averaging 12inches and were harvested averaging 18-20inches

Today is the harvest of the 555 event koi..

Our female showa breeder, Bea Bea, was breed June 1st, with the first culling of the fry right after the hatched. All black fry were placed in the mud ponds and all the white fry were culled out.

July 13 these baby showa got their 2nd cull. All the koi 1.5- 2.5inches were sent back to the mud ponds for growing, with all the larger koi staying in the greenhouse.

Aug 17th the showa babies were havested. These showa came in 3-5.25″.

Can you believe it, its already harvest time!

Our Hermy Sanke was spawn on May 17th. The first cull of the babies was done July 7th, about 50 days from when the fry were placed in the mud pond. At that time all the babies that made it thru the first cull and were 1.5-2.25 inches, returned to the mud pond for further growing. All large koi were brought into the greenhouse to grow indoors.

Aug 16th the sanke that returned to the mud ponds were harvested and brought into the greenhouse. These sanke were an impressive 6inches with full bodies.

The last pond has been brought in. This pond was our second pond from our Kikokuryu female.

Mixing the female with a kujaku and a yambuki Long fin, this pond produced a great mix of variety.

As it would have it, I was reading a thread on Koi Bito where people were sharing their Ochiba, as more of our ochiba were being brought in from our the mud pond. http://www.koi-bito.com/forum/main-forum/12541-fall-colors-lets-see-ochibas.html

These are Ochiba from our second pond of Ochiba this year. Both ponds are the same parents. With the damand on Ochiba we needed to produce  more ochiba this year.  We seperated the eggs from the  parent set  into mulitplie ponds to beable to raise more koi. They aren’t as big as the Ochiba that are being featured on Koi Bito, but at only 3mths old, they are already 5-7″, but they are looking great. What fun will it be to watch these koi grow!

Gin Rin Ochiba

Doitsu Ochiba

Doitsu Ochiba

Group picture of Ochiba, Doitsu Ochiba, Gin Rin Ochiba and Chagoi

Group picture of Ochiba and Gin Rin Ochiba