Originally Posted by
Orlando
There are several factors in play here in order to select the best ones when small koi are being selected let's say 3" or about there. First you have to use established varieties ie; kohaku, shiro Utsuri, Goshiki. This first point will lead you to be able to learn what the better ones look like when small I just used those three varieties as examples. Second you must stay away from flock spawnings altogether because you will never have constant results. Third you will get better with every attempt at culling young koi, experience will become your book, notes and taking pictures will help immensely in other words anyone that doing this for the first time without any help will probably not make the best choice's. If I was to take a guess I would use the no. 3 as a rule let me explain you need to breed the same koi atleast 3 times in order see the results as Tosai, Nisai and Sansai in order to determine what are the choice's that the person is selecting are developing into now you will also run into this scenario, all the fry from one group of koi are all no good two things you could do here are; breed that female with different male's next spawning season or scrap that group all together and start with a different group if you only have one good female to work with well I've already said change male and only stick with one male because that will give you the best or more constant results to narrow down your decision making during the culling process. This subject could be discussed to death because every variety has different developing stages and different growth rates, I've been breeding fish for almost 50 years and every year I learn something new I think I should add only been messing around with koi seriously since 2011 so IMO am just learning how to walk as far as koi are concerned, hope some of this information helps.