This word means very different things depending on who you ask.
I noticed some new threads about "time to cull" and such, made me wonder...
I'm curious what you guys do with all the culls. Do you sell them, feed them to your dogs, fry up the bigger ones for yourself or what??
They're fish, so technically livestock, especially when in larger numbers. I'd think they would be eaten, like other stock, rabbit, sheep, chicken and so on. Or maybe you compost them for the garden??
Gave 3 goldfish and 32 koi from about 18 inches to 27 inches to a friend who had a pipe that leaked chlorinated water into her pond and she had lost all of her fish. She had a 20,000 gallon pond and room for them.
Gave some less desirable mostly bronze goldfish offspring to an aquaculture department at a local college.
He said the give some away and use some in feeding experiments. I didn't ask because I didn't want to know but thought that maybe they were fed to the bass.
I have quite a few now that I need to get rid of. I just need to catch them. Not sure what I will do with these. I have both koi and goldfish to get rid of.
I tried to talk my granddaughter into opening a summer business and selling fish and pond plants, but she has no motivation.
Culpeper VA.
I have some from last year to sell cheaply, but I can hardly see them to catch them. Still working on my green water.
20k would be so nice...Wouldn't have to try so hard to get rid of spring babies.
I think most big business breeders toss the first culls and they probably sell the later culls to big box pet stores then the final culls get sold as a little higher quality to Koi dealers to sell as cheaper fish. I am pretty sure most hobbyist just re home or let nature take its course. For smaller business breeders I guess it depends on the breeders, culling in the true sense (usually implies killing the removed fish) is not for the faint of heart.
In the past when I was breeding, I would cull each month for the first 5 months. The culled fry would be dried, ground up and feed back to existing fry. By late September/early October I would have the numbers down to an amount I could safely overwinter inside. I would sale these in the spring and keep dropping the price every week until they were mostly gone. I would sale the remaining koi to a local pond shop. Was a little hard to think about to begin with, but I soon realized if I tried to keep them all alive, I would loose most of them due to my limited tank space. I am just a hobby breeder, but still try hard and get some decent results. Unfortunately, I have not been able to breed the last two years due to divorce and moving. Next year I will be back at it and just realize culling is part of experience if I wish to hobby breed.
Regards, John.
i know a guy that dries some to add to his organic gardening setup but he feeds them mostly to his chickens....dinosaurs i tell ya....i wouldnt want to be a cull at his house...Billy
the worst thing is how many other vids come up while opening that one.
I think most of mine get swallowed by gamefish in our irrigation pond........I have not seen any big or little ones after 5-6 years of putting them there.