Welcome to Shinshiro Koi

Spring Time in Japan

It would seem that Spring is, perhaps, eventually here in the North East with temperatures starting to approach what they should be for May. It has been a long, hard Winter for Koi Carp in un-heated ponds but with temperatures on the rise they are gradually getting back to normal feeding regimes, swimming about happily and generally reminding us why we enjoy the hobby so much.

Our Koi buying trip to Japan last week was a huge success, especially as we managed to pursuade one or two of our Koi breeder friends to sell us some of their Tosai Tategoi as well as lots of lovely Koi at tremendous value.

The Cherry trees, unfortunately were just past their best in Niigata and Yamanashi, just at the stage where the leaves obscure the blossom. A week or two earlier would have been perfect.

However, as I keep pointing out to everyone, this is not a holiday, it is a working trip and this time was mostly no different with early departures and late arrivals at the hotel allowing us to visit as many Koi breeders as possible in the 4 short days we had there. It was quite a surprise to find that all of the breeders had many Koi in their indoor ponds at this time of year as I had expected most to have already been put out to the mud ponds to grow on. Unfortunately our Japanese colleagues have been suffering the same vagaries of weather as we have this year and with the same result which is to say everything is about a month behind "normal". This has meant that the water in the mud pods is still too cold for the Koi to go out.

This effective shortening of the growing season may have a knock-on effect when time comes for the Autumn Harvest with the Koi not making the growth they would normally. With any luck, the Japanese Summer will be nice and warm to compensate for the shortened season with October bringing lots of great new Koi.

After banging on about how much hard work is involved in a trip to Japan, I have a confession to make. This trip we had almost 2 half days off !!

We were honoured to be invited to the Onbashira-Sai Festival by Kobayashi san, a very good friend of Shunichi, our man in Japan. This is a Shinto festival which has been held every six years for over 1200 years.

    WE TAKE QUARANTINE VERY SERIOUSLY !

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