Natsumi has spent the summer in a Koi Acres mud pond in Scandia, MN. She grew a total of 8 cm while in the pond and measures 50 cm (almost 20 inches). She’ll be spending winter in the Koi Acres barn and we’ll think about having her spend another summer in the mud pond. I’m not sure I really love the whole mud pond thing since I purchase koi to enjoy in my backyard pond. Natsumi is more of an experiment of how might a shiro utsuri develop in conditions different then our backyard ponds.
I was a little late to see Natsumi being pulled from her mud pond but here are some photos of the mud harvest. The large mud ponds are drained down and the crew goes in and gathers up the koi. Some of the koi harvested on Day 1 were very large (25+ inches and greater girth). In general the mud ponds are supposed to help the koi grow and benefits the skin quality of the koi. The pond digger thought it would be nice to build a mini mud pond in our yard but I think the idea is to have a large mud pond, averaging about 15000+ gallons for each koi. We definitely are not putting a mud pond in our yard 😉
One of Koi Acres’ mud ponds. Obviously the water is quite a bit higher normally.It takes a lot of hands to harvest the koi out of the mud pond.
and voilá – we have Natsumi:
October 11, 2015 Mud pond harvest day, 50 cm
Of course I took a few video clips of her while at Koi Acres. I could probably watch an hour long video of her and not get bored. Here’s two and a half minutes of Natsumi:
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