Scott, beings this entire process is performed in the hatchery, they have several things on their side that you and I don't.
#1, and the biggest deal-Someone else is paying the bill.
#2, the number of raceways allow them to spawn Koi on spawntex mats that are quickly removed and placed in hatch raceways-both indoors and out, so there is a constant supply of correct forage size year around.
To make this worth-while for us it would take 3,000 fish to 8-10" to get 1500 females providing no losses so a guess is start with 4000-5000.
My figures would be a return of 20-25$ a fish after overhead on the females and 5-7$ on the males at the 10" mark.
I think 45-50$ a fish retail would work "IF" the demand will handle production and sales of 1500 fish sold per season. Problem I see is unlike some species, this WILL increase labor with an increase in number due to the amount of time consumed per fish so it may drive the price higher just due to time involved.
I seen a note above about chemical alteration of sex of fish.. as Colorado is finding out, there are side effects to this that appear long after raising and stocking...some WAE are being found now that are Hermaphrodites and LMB are not any different in how this change occurs so I would never trust it, but they were sure this was a done-deal.. That's what mother nature does when we alter what shouldn't have been.
Snipe:
If you had to put a dollar figure on each female LMB at that size, what would be the retail price for say, 100 fish? Would that $$ amount be a viable business decision to tie up a pond for that length of time, plus whatever water was needed to grow the koi? Or are the koi being sourced off site?
If I were asked for 100 Females and that's all I was asked to raise, it would be 100$ a fish minimum
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