Looking for opinions

[YoubetterYoubet]

Hello, I am the leader of our local 4-h club. This season I have 4 kids that live in apartments so keeping livestock is out of the question and so they have chosen fish as their project.

We make it our mission in whatever we raise to produce quality animals. I need to teach them to have a discriminating eye when choosing things to breed.

This is my idea, I want to find a mixed bag of guppy fry and have the kids look them over and choose a pair that is the best quality and explain why and a pair that is not breeding worthy and why.

With any animal, I try to teach the importance of culling early and often and why it is important to do so.

Does anyone have any other ideas? Or know the best way to find a bunch of motley fish to use?

 

[Aiken Drum]

I wouldnt breed from a pair. 1M/1F will result in a male harassing the female to the point of killing her. You want a mix of 1M/3F to avoid females being overly stressed.

 

[Andy Sager]

I'm not sure you will get a good example through a bag of fry as they would need to grow before being able to be selected for breeding. If there is a short time frame, you can look into a bag of feeder livebearer fish which will usually have a selection of guppies, platies, mollies and swordtails. These fish will be closer to breeding age if not already of breeding age.
If you have an unlimited time, I'd work with a species that has larger spawns, like Sailfin Mollies, ( no balloon fish species) so that you have a bigger selection of fry to grow which would also show how even in a single spawning, not all the fry will be viable candidates for breeding.

 

[Colin_T]

Buy a group of adult female guppies and they will be gravid (pregnant) when you get them. No males needed and the students will have baby fish within a few weeks.

 

[YoubetterYoubet]

I have one kid who chose Mollies and 3 that chose guppies. Each got quality trios from trusted breeders and all have had babies.

You all may be correct and I am going about things wrong. I have always had members that kept to livestock projects. Goats, poultry, cavies, rabbits, cows, horses etc. For those not familiar with a project, each student chooses what to focus on. They raise the animal, keep records of all expenses, and document all things with the animal. At the end of the year they turn in their report. With livestock, there are shows they participate in and end put selling their animal (s) with hopes to make a profit. They also have to tell what they learned, what they can improve on etc.

It is easy with the livestock because they attend shows and work with judges and there are always good examples for them to see and pick out good stock and bad stock and what to look for. This is the first year Ive had kids do fish so we are all learning. Blind leading the blind. Prey for us. And thank you all for your kindness

 

[Andy Sager]

I have one kid who chose Mollies and 3 that chose guppies. Each got quality trios from trusted breeders and all have had babies.

You all may be correct and I am going about things wrong. I have always had members that kept to livestock projects. Goats, poultry, cavies, rabbits, cows, horses etc. For those not familiar with a project, each student chooses what to focus on. They raise the animal, keep records of all expenses, and document all things with the animal. At the end of the year they turn in their report. With livestock, there are shows they participate in and end put selling their animal (s) with hopes to make a profit. They also have to tell what they learned, what they can improve on etc.

It is easy with the livestock because they attend shows and work with judges and there are always good examples for them to see and pick out good stock and bad stock and what to look for. This is the first year Ive had kids do fish so we are all learning. Blind leading the blind. Prey for us. And thank you all for your kindness

Well that's definitely a turn from your original post, but you should be able to still get some results. Unfortunately, good stock from good breeders tend to not have as many bad results from breeding as say, fish from the box stores tend to do so you can really concentrate on colors and fin shapes with the guppies. The mollies may be a crap shoot as to what colors may come from them.
Good luck with the "experiment" and keep us posted with your results.