Raccoon attack!

We observed six raccoons happily sipping water from the stream early this morning.   Looked like a mother and five babies.   Big babies!

We then observed the baby fish in the lower pond decided that eating breakfast wasn't so important as it generally is to them.  They stayed hidden in the plants and didn't even pretend to be interested in food.  NOT GOOD.

Before today, the baby fish would come running (swimming) as fast as they could for feeding time.  Today.....nothing.   Gotta find a way to discourage the raccoons. 

They're getting big!   Above you can see Becko - the orange one with two black spots.  Also Aki - White with black spots and red spot on his head. On the far right is Lucy - the redhead. The bigger ones on the right are (from top) Spike, Hana and Momo.

You can see why Hana and Momo are the biggest fish.  This is them running up to us for feeding time.

The story of the Brat

We very carefully picked the fish we might want to keep long term and put them in the upper/main pond. The runners up were put in the lower/secondary pond so we can see how they grow and choose who to keep next year. One fish has been my favorite ever since we could see colors happening last fall. We named it "Lefty" because the head hi (red color) covered its left eye. We know that hi that goes over an eye will not win a competition, but we are not competive show people. We just like the markings. I specifically put Lefty in the upper pond because it's been my favorite fish all year. The next day, after the 4 hour cull, Lefty was nowhere to be seen. No panic, fish tend to be shy and hide for a few days after they are moved. Then we found it. Lefty was in the lower pond. It appears that Lefty travelled down the waterfall into the stream and across the rocks (maybe 6 feet of shallows) over the next waterfall, back into its home pond where it wanted to be. What a Brat! Anyway, here is Lefty.

Catastrophe

Had an intruder last night that ate or killed dozens of babies. So horrible. We lost all the bigger ones and the remaning babies are terrified. We did have the pond covered, but we obviously underestimated the cunning of the local raccoons. Sad. Looks like we have between 70 and 80 left from 200 that we put to bed last night. Tonight we will cover the baby pond with netting held down with large rocks. Hope it is enough.

Spring 2012 - Oh Baby!!

Finally got to the Spring Cull! Three catagories - keep in the upper pond for better viewing all Summer; keep inthe lower pond for sale next year (and to keep that lower pond clean of bugs); sell. We counted - we have 250 fish for sale. We are VERY happy with the colors - the reds are lovely, theblackand white are nicely marked and the yellows are absolutely beautiful. Have a wonderful Summer, koi-friends.

Oh Baby! - Culling Day

We emptied the baby pond and caught all the babies. Had to decide which ones to keep over the winter and which ones to lose. We have put up the culls for sale at $1 apiece. Very inexpensive for koi, but it's the end of the season and they are unpredictable colors.

We estimate 600 healthy koi. Way more than we've ever seen. I guess we did a good job raising them over the summer. Maybe too good.

First we emptied half the water.





Chris was able to catch most of the babies in the 1/2 full pond, but we eventually emptied all the water to find the final few smart babies.



We collected the fish in plastic buckets and separated them into sell pile, lower pond, upper pond and aquarium piles. (Yes, we broke down and set up an aquarium for the winter. We ended up with 20 lucky babies wintering indoors. Currently they are very unhappy, but they'll get used to it.)





The picture above is the culls. They are for sale for $1 each.

The picture below are the keeps. They will be for sale in the Spring. Price will depend on their size and color.



It was a lot of work - about 6 hours of culling and getting everyone settled. But they are cute, aren't they??

Feeding time and a big surprise!

A sunny Saturday.


The babies come running (swimming?) for feeding time. Chris is feeding them store bought koi food that he has ground up in a blender to make it small enough for the fry.



This is one of the fish we will likely keep at least until next year. We named it Mimi. We are looking for more red and white in our pond, and this little sweetie fits the need.


After their koi food, they get their favorite dessert - hard boiled egg yolks. They devour it!!



A couple pictures of colors and sizes.


There he is!! A good picture of Big Red.


This is Momo. She is a keeper.


We got a big surprise this past week. We spotted a fish we thought had been captured by a critter!! We hadn't seen this fish since June. And there it is.....We had named it Nicho - which means two red spots. (I think!) But we've now renamed it, Moby. As in - the elusive white whale. This fish was spawned last year and somehow managed to remain hidden when we captured all of last year's babies. We missed it and it lived unseen for months. Kind of fun. It stays at the bottom and even thought it's white and large (6 or 7 inches) we still have to search to spot Moby.