Koi Farms » Koi Breeding Process » Culling

Producing high quality koi is incredibly labor intensive.

Many hours a year are spent culling koi and butterfly koi. The first cull happens in mid- summer when the fish are 1 to 2 inches in length where the unmarketable fish are removed. In some varieties, as many as 99% of the population is culled out.

The "keepers" are then put into grow out ponds where they will continue to grow. As the fish grow in size, they're continually harvested and sorted and the best fish are grown to bigger sizes.