DEVELOPMENT OF OOMO SHOWA

Below's an article on the development of Oomo Showa written by a Malaysian hobbyist, Mr Tan SL. 

Fujio Oomo san was on a trip to a few countries in the ASEAN region and he was at a local koi centre on 18th January 2009 with his buddy business partner Tamikazu Kobayashi san of Nishikigoi Direct Co Ltd. Hehas kindly spent some time during his hectic schedule to provide details that facilitated the writing of this article. It was indeed a pleasure to get the opportunity to know more about his showa breeding and the development of his showa. Hope you enjoy this article as much as it was written.

Tamikazu Kobayashi and Fujio Oomo

Please do visit their company’s website, http://www.koi-breeders.jp. This website is updated every week with information about their koi breeding and other activities.

The showa in this article was born on 24th May 2003 at Oomo’s koi breeding facility in Nagaoka, Niigata. This koi is already sold to a British hobbyist and it is now enjoying good life in the owner’s pond. This showa is a spawn from Oomo’s main parent stock. The male oyagoi (parent koi) is from Dainichi koi farm and the female oyagoi is from Takeda in Hiroshima.

The female oyagoi during the breeding time was about 72cm in length while the male oyagoi was about 65cm. As it is today, the female oyagoi is about 80cm. The female was chosen as a parent stock because of its high quality white skin and top quality sumi. It has very good body structure as well. The pattern of the female however is not one which hobbyist would want to keep. Pattern is not an important criterion for female parent. Notice the pattern of the female koi on the following photo?

The male oyagoi’s Hi is very deep red in colour and is very thick. The sumi is superb jet black. This male koi does not have a lot of weight as compared to the female koi (This is not an important criteria for the male). Oomo loved these 2 characteristics of this koi so much that he decided to use this male koi for breeding purposes.

The spawning which includes the showa in this article during 2003 was very successful. This spawn resulted in about 300,000 fries. The percentage of kuroko (black fries) was 45% and this is considered high. There are many instances of koi breeders getting only about 10-30% kuroko. 

Which to choose??

After 4 days from hatching, Oomo selected these 45% kuroko (about 135,000 fries) and grew them in 3 of their mud ponds in Niigata. Only kuroko are selected for showa breeding. The rest are not kept. Each of these 3 mud pond is about 25m in length, 40m wide and about 1m deep. Oomo placed about 45,000 fries into each of these mud ponds.

The black fries are the kuroko

The culling process: Oomo places a large tub with water and aeration with big standing water pipe connected with thin rubber tubes. This pipe is connected to a vacuum system. Koi fries from another large holding vat are scooped into small bowls. Utilising the tube, kuroko are sucked into a holding tub. On average, one very experienced person can pick about 2,500 kuroko within an hour. The number of koi the breeder wants to select to keep determines the number of the persons needed to do this culling. Likewise, they can estimate the number of fries they get from the culling. For example, if 4 person working for one hour can pick up to 10,000 kuroko. Indeed this is a very clever setup.

Culling System

After 35 days (around early July) in mud pond, the fries are netted to one side of the pond for another round of culling. To do this culling, Oomo utilizes only small 1 inch diameter scoop to do the selection. This is sheer hard work of the breeder. Normally, culling of fries is done around 40 days after they went into mud pond. The reason Oomo to start culling 5 days earlier is to allow the selected koi to get more space in the mud pond to develop. Red on the fries at this stage is still not Culling System Releasing fries into mud pond vivid but they are still recognizable and made culling possible. This culling process takes 2 very experienced persons about one day per mud pond. Only about 30% of the 45,000 fries (about 13,500) were selected and kept for further growing. These selected ones are released immediately back into the same mud pond. These fries are average about 3 to 3.5cm in length during this culling. Toby koi (the extreme large ones) are not kept for further growth.

In another 2 weeks later, another culling is done to further reduce the number. This time, only 20% of the 13,500 are kept from this culling. The process is the same as the earlier culling by netting fries to one side of the pond and those selected koi are immediately released back to the same mud pond. From this cull, only 2,700 are kept for further growing. In this culling process only those fries with some indication of good Hi pattern are selected. The Hi at this stage are mostly orange and brownish. Just very few have it really red. There is no consideration of the sumi at this stage (This is Japanese breeder’s secret). These fries are by now about 4.5 to 5cm in length.

 Harvesting

At the end of summer around late August, these koi would have grown up to about 13 to 15cm. At this stage, the koi can be easily categorized into a few distinctive grades. This showa in this article was one of the top grade koi from that batch in 2003.

 

Baby Koi up close

How the Champion koi was selected

Oomo san selected and kept the koi when it was just very small. Even when it was so young, the quality of the red on this koi was really red and the thickness of the red is very deep. It has very good Hi pattern too, akin to those of a kohaku. The skin was very white but there was no sumi at all on the koi. Body structure of the koi was not considered at that stage as it was still so small. Oomo kept the koi as they were confident of the breeding pair and the bloodline.

Hint: Actually something to consider. Koi at this size without sumi is much cheaper than koi with a lot of sumi. Most hobbyists want to buy tosai (yearlings) with sumi already showing on the koi. As such tosai with sumi indication has more demand than those without sumi. Koi with very little or no sumi are given less attention by hobbyists. Actually, koi with less sumi is not necessarily a low potential koi. This koi here sets a very good example. The sumi grows as the koi gets to adult stage.

Pix 1, some sumi has already started to develop at the nose, shoulder and tail section. The sumi in front of the dorsal fin is somewhat hidden. Could one imagine how this showa will looks like on pix 5 ? There was no sumi on the right side of its nose, very little on the mid section and other areas as well.

Pix 2, the quality of the sumi at this stage is not very good. It is too thin and sparse. Oomo san joked that it will take a lot of luck for this koi win in a show. We can however see more sumi is starting to develop.

Pix 3, this koi was then kept in a huge mud pond (100m x 50m x 4m). Only 30 koi was kept in this mud pond. As you can see, more and more sumi is developing on this koi. It won the 65Bu prize at Japanese Nougyosai show in 2006.

Pix 4, the koi was kept in the same huge pond but only 20 koi is kept. How a koi will grow and develop depends on the natural environment such as amount of rain, temperature and etc. At 5 years old, this koi won yet again at the same show but the prestigious 70 Bu champion.

Pix 5, Even the professional would not know if this koi will grow from pix 3 to pix 5. A few months ago it won again at All Nagaoka Breeders’ Koi Show 2008 as a Runner-up champion. The koi was then 76cm. We expect the koi to grow even bigger than it is now, maybe up to 80cm or more. Hopefully with these set of photos, hobbyists can learn more about the development of Oomo’s showa.

Some questions from hobbyists

If shoulder is wider, does that mean there are possibilities they will grow very big?

Beauty of a koi is more important than size. Its not very important that a the koi can

grow up to 90cm.

Can sumi disappear on a showa?

Yes sumi can disappear and as a matter of fact Oomo have many showa with sumi disappearing when they were growing in mud pond. But once these showa are back in a controlled environment such as the concrete pond, sumi can re-appear. Shipments to European countries (like Holland) shown sumi to appear easily due to the hard water condition there.

Can fully finished sumi disappear?

Actually, for Oomo showa, more sumi will appear after 4 years.

How do you bring the head to become white?

Too much colour food causes the head to be red. During summer (July to September, temperature is 34 to 35 deg Celsius) growing in huge mud pond, 50% of the food is color enhancing food, 30% is silk worm and 20% normal food. These food are mixed for feeding. These mixed food are fed 6 times a day using automatic feeder. Oomo’s company has more than 100 mud ponds and it is next to impossible to do manual feeding daily. The first feeding is around 6am whereas the last feeding time is 7pm or 8pm. At noon time when the sun is high, the portion of the food given to the koi is lesser due to the high surface temperature of water. Koi tend to eat less during then. During spring at about 20deg Celsius, there’s no need to use silk worm. Luster is enhanced with silk worm feed.

What are the indication of a Jumbo Koi (those more than 80cm) on a small koi?

Some of the indications are head is big, broad shoulder and even shaped body. It is more important to consider the growing environment and food fed to the koi, rather than comparing too much details of each koi. Example, two koi of about same growing potential, one koi may get better environment such as mud pond, good food and etc. This koi may do much better than another koi that grows in poor condition. Our advise is, please choose good ones but most importantly give them the environment to bring out the full potential of the koi.

Hints on Koi and Water Current

Koi swims and they do rest in natural environment. Can imagine the water current in a natural mud pond? Salmon and trout fish, on the other hand, swims very quickly in rapid water current in river. Many hobbyists tend to built pond with rapid water current. In theory, most wanted their koi to exercise and hope to build big strong body. However, the fact is, koi are fish that do not swim in rapid river in their natural habitat. They swim and the rest in mud pond. So pond with rapid water moving is not suitable for koi. As a matter of fact, in most pond pond with water circling around the pond, koi tend to stay in the middle where water current is less. Koi still likes to swim against the current but it is suggested for 2 water return current that pushes at different direction for the koi to built even body structure.

Going in depth, there are other theory of small koi needs more exercise to grow fast and big koi needs more rest. In reality, small koi do need a bit of exercise but they too need rest, just like human being. Maybe koi hobbyist should consider 8 hours of more swimming and then allow them to rest, especially at night.

To conclude, here are some Oomo showa from 2008 spawning, can you find the future champion?

We will have some Oomo Showa available in the coming season..watch out for it