Welcome to the Koitrips blog.
The idea behind Koitrips is that there isn’t really any dedicated Koi trip sites around. Many dealers do offer trips to Japan but its mainly from people going into the shops etc and talking to the owners.
We have been visiting Japan for that long and have vast experience in taking clients to Japan. So it was decided to make a dedicated Japan trips page. On seeing how the site does we will also arrange trips to other places, such as Koi shows in other countries etc, it could be really good.
On this blog I will try and keep up with what’s going on in Japan. We talk to many of the breeders regularly and I will blog about the things going on in Japan at different times.
The Autumn harvest period is now coming to a close, 95% of the Koi will all be out of the mud ponds and back in the breeders facilities. It’s amazing really but all the work in the Spring breeding and culling then the wait in the mud ponds to grow the Koi, they get a very busy 6 weeks where people from all over the world go and buy and then that’s pretty much it for many of the breeders. Now to get the sold Koi shipped to their new homes and then prepare the mud ponds for winter.
The Snow will be on its way very soon so many breeders will be turning over the existing clay and then hammering it all flat again or ‘Whacking’ it. Some will add new clay if it is the time to do so. It needs to be done very fast because when the snow comes there is no chance. Some falls can be in metres per night, not feet! So once the snow falls it’s impossible to access many of the ponds at all.
During the winter period the breeders will be concentrating on next year’s Tosai, Koi bred this year. They will select through them all over winter and try and sort them out into grades which is not easy. The Tosai are kept at 23C all through winter the Koi are very active. When we arrive in the Spring some of the Koi will over 40cms. I will blog more on Tosai at a later time.
So welcome again and I will keep the blog updated as much as I can.
Thanks for reading.
Tim