A day with Koicenter Tiel - 1st stop Oofuchi

Today I spent an enjoyable day with the guys from Koicenter Tiel in the Netherlands - http://www.koicenter.nl/ - as they went around Niigata selecting some Koi.

First stop of the morning was Oofuchi, a breeder I'd not visited before but one I knew of well and had heard much about.  Their Koi always feature at the Niigata Nogyosai, you can see an awesome example of their Kujaku on last year's results pages - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/575

First was a look at their mixed tosai for sale, an early indication of the wide range of varieties available at the farm.  They were certainly in excellent condition.

Next we visited the house containing nisai, a house which it has to be said is rather showing it's age!

I've heard mention of the rotten metal support pole here before.  I'm told last year that it just hang in mid air.  It's now been propped up with a lump of wood.

A sample of the Koi on offer.  Pretty much every variety seems to be available at Oofuchi, although there is a predominance of metallic Koi.

It's in there somewhere - Joachim on the right searching for a Koi.

Some of the Koi purchased at Oofuchi, the Ochiba Shigure in the second picture particularly appealed, a nice clean fish with an interesting pattern.

Just up the road are some rather more modern Koi houses on either side of the road.  The left hand side of the building contained a pond of sansai and yonsai, the right hand side the farm's tategoi.

Below the sansai and yonsai, some very nice Koi available in this pond.

Interestingly the tategoi pond was pea green however, through the haze and as they surfaced to feed the quality of the Koi in the pond was very evident, again a wide range of varieties in the pond.

An interesting start to the morning and a facility that's well worth visiting.