Bitchin’ Chickens with Claire

Claire Dineen and her veterinarian friend do “tailgate necropsies” and share their findings on the Bitchin’ Chickens Blog. Fun conversation with some great info that is just the tip of the iceberg, check out her website for more information!

Bitchin' Chickens

Poultry Nerds

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.

  Jennifer: 0:24

  Poultry Nerds, we are here with Claire, go ahead and introduce yourselves and tell people where they can find you.

  Claire: 0:30

  Sure. My name is Claire and I am the person behind the WordPress blog Bitchin Chickens. You can find me on WordPress, so it's It's Bitchin with a B I T C H I N, chickens, all one word, dot com. I'm on Facebook and Instagram as Bitchin Chickens Farm, and I'm also on YouTube as Bitchin Chickens.

  Jennifer: 0:56

  I didn't know you had a YouTube channel. Do you do all your necropsies on there?

  Claire: 1:00

  No, I haven't. I haven't. I was presenting this year at the the Backyard Chicken Summit. I don't know if you know it. It's an, it's American. I'm Canadian, but I was one of the two foreign presenters and you have to make a video. So it's when it's 25 to 30 minute video and then be available on the day of the summit. Your video goes live. There's 6, 000 people who can sign up for all the different events and then answer questions. So I thought I should set up a YouTube channel for my video and then I've started making smaller videos. And when I get it, this is a podcast, but I have been interviewed by Cable TV and so I've put up the little videos there. But I think the necropsy stuff on video would be great because the person who's doing the necropsies with me is somebody who is a veterinarian but also has a master's degree in avian pathology and has worked as an avian pathologist for more than 35 years and she's a fantastic teacher.

  Jennifer: 2:13

  Oh yeah, you should do that, like a whole channel of that stuff.

  Carey: 2:17

  Oh yeah, that would be cool.

  Claire: 2:19

  Yeah I'm, okay. So I'm in my early sixties. I'm not really technologically inclined. I've had to teach myself a lot of this stuff. I have younger coworkers that I say, what's this or how to do that? So I found a, I don't even have a cell phone. The cell phone I do have is a work one, but I found it, it has a fantastic camera, but also can make videos. So I think that is what I am going to start doing. This veterinarian doesn't live here full time. She's going to retire here and she has a home. And so she comes here every few weeks and we do what's called tailgate necropsy. She's got a big pickup truck and what we do is we spread out a big white, sheet. We do the necropsies outside and she wears her lab jacket and, explains everything. So I do, we do make those necropsies. into blog posts though. So there'll be like a case. And so we'll look at what the symptoms were. And then we cut open the bird and I take lots of pictures and then she explains what she sees and she's pretty accurate at getting a diagnosis.

  Jennifer: 3:30

  Wow. So I first found you an article came up on my feed, and I want to say a year or more ago, the one you did on lash eggs. And it was so fantastically written that still to this day when people comment about lash eggs, I still direct them to your website to read that blog article.

  Claire: 3:49

  Thank you.

  Jennifer: 3:50

  Very detailed, very good, written.

  Claire: 3:52

  Thank you.

  Jennifer: 3:53

  So today we're going to go through some common things that we see on social media that new people might think that they have, but don't necessarily have.

  Carey: 4:04

  So when I first heard the term bitching chickens, I was like, what is this? So obviously I had to hit Google and check everything out. And I started reading some of the articles and like she commented a while ago. Some of these are extremely detailed about their topic. And I like how you do include a lot of pictures. Here's one from October the 24th tailgate

  Claire: 4:36

  necroposy

  Carey: 4:37

  with her, and yeah, pop tailgate down, go through everything piece by piece. There's a lot of picture here, talks about what's going on, what you found, how it could be. what the options are. It's very detailed.

  Claire: 4:55

  I am an educator by trade in a different field. I work at a community health center for people. And my job actually is to go out in the community and I do workshops on a variety of issues. So I think I have a good sense about reading the room or, understanding who the audience is. And I just started working on the blog trying to refute a lot of the misinformation I see online. There's so many. Online groups and so many blogs and some of them are good and some of them are not and some of them have good information but also woven in that is Misinformation,

  Carey: 5:36

  right?

  Claire: 5:37

  You know my Blog has people who don't have chickens and may never have chickens, but have found chickens are interesting, or they might have had them and they miss having them. To people who are considering chickens, and want to do all the reading and preparation in advance, to people who've had chickens for a number of years, I also have a number of veterinarians, vet techs one of the people that I collaborate with works at a veterinary teaching hospital and she's a lab scientist. So all of those people I get information from, I bounce the articles off, but also we write articles together.

  Carey: 6:20

  Yeah, that's, and for me, that's one of the reasons why I started doing this podcast and several of the things that I'm involved in because you go through Facebook groups looking for stuff and people will tell you things that, they sound good. But once you start doing your homework and doing a little research, you find out that they are far from accurate. That's why Jennifer and I we decided, hey, look, when we do this, the topics that we discuss, we're going to talk about. Facts, things that we know to be true so that I really like that about your page. And I like another thing I liked about it that I noticed is when somebody goes to your page and they, just a home page. If they scroll all the way down past the first several, you've got categories. And I really like how you have a lot of this stuff broken down. Talk about some of those and how you go through categorizing everything and all that.

  Claire: 7:31

  Yeah. So I like my homepage. I chose that WordPress. Theme without even knowing anything about blogging and it turned out to be good because there's a lot of stuff right on my homepage so that people don't have to scroll through. There's all at the top are the latest articles followed by what I call a bit different things that are interesting that people might not be able to find elsewhere but would have a hard time maybe, searching for online and the whole bottom is around health issues. And when you get to all of those categories, if you want to find the old ones, there's an arrow that says older articles or archives, but there's also a search box. I now have 750 articles that I've done in the last six years. So I'm a pretty prolific writer. So if people want to find something from five years ago, they can just put in there. Something simple, not a long sentence, but egg binding, or lash egg, or something like that, and then everything that will come up that's related to that. I've tried to write articles from you're just thinking about chickens and know nothing, to you've had chickens for a long time, but maybe here's something you hadn't thought about. Also, after a while you write articles and you think what interests me? It's not just about thinking about an audience. You want to write something for yourself and keep yourself interested. So I've done a whole series called having chickens is a great way to meet your neighbors. I live on a small island. I've been here about 24 years and I'm known as the chicken lady, but there's a lot of conversations you have when you have chickens and sometimes it's people who don't even have chickens. I've got some wire, would you like it? Or, I have an egg customer who tells me an interesting story. So this is a series, I'm almost at number 50 and it's a combination of a profile about those people as well as their birds. So it's like, how did you get here? And what did you do beforehand? And all of those kinds of things, those kind of I've also got a series called, When Art Meets Chickens. So I profile artists, writers, and crafters who incorporate work that has chickens in it. So it could be sculpture, painting, jewelry, pottery, a book, poetry, all kinds of things. Whether they have chickens or not. And I've interviewed people from around the world for those, that series. That sounds

  Jennifer: 10:09

  super

  Claire: 10:10

  interesting and fun. It's totally fun. Like I, I interviewed. An Inuit woman in Greenland, whose English was her third language, about getting chickens in Greenland. And it's called Chickens at the Top of the World. And she was feeding them seal meat and having a heated coop over the winter because it gets so cold. And she had to import her chicks from Denmark. Because, there aren't chicken hatcheries in Greenland.

  Jennifer: 10:45

  I just have to know, how did that work out? Are they still there? Did they survive? Yeah, they are

  Claire: 10:49

  still there. And she sent me cool pictures like the Northern Lights over her chicken coop on the ocean at the top of the world. Yeah.

  Jennifer: 11:02

  Chickens are everywhere.

  Claire: 11:03

  Chickens are everywhere. They are the most populous bird species in the world. And everybody has stories. I'm just writing about a guy, an American who's married to a Cambodian woman and they live in Cambodia and he raises bantam chickens that are specific to that area.

  Jennifer: 11:25

  Wow. It's like the universal language of chillaxing.

  Claire: 11:30

  Yes,

  Jennifer: 11:31

  it

  Claire: 11:32

  is. When people are divided by politics and all kinds of things. But if you just talk about chickens, it does bring people together.

  Jennifer: 11:41

  It does. So let's talk about some common things that people might think that they have in their coop when they're just getting started. So what's the one thing that you see most often that You're Oh, that probably isn't what it is, but let's talk about it anyway.

  Claire: 12:01

  Oh yeah. There's, there seems to be a list of things that come up, and regardless of what the symptoms are, it's lash eggs, egg binding, coccidia And often it isn't. And I think let's even go back before that. Oftentimes, and I've written about this, people just write on Facebook groups, My chicken is sick. Help. Or, My chicken died. What do you think it is? And what I suggest is, You write down every symptom about what happened. Was your chicken limping three weeks ago? And two weeks ago, did it develop a cough? And a week ago, did it stop eating? Or, are any of your other birds sick? Has anybody died? What have you done to examine your bird. And people are like, oh, I'm afraid to pick it up. Sometimes you have to pick up your bird and feel, is its keel prominent? It's not eating. What color is its poop? I've done a whole article about poop and how to interpret the output. Is it green? Is it black? Is it red? Is it slimy? Those things. give you an idea about what's going on internally, right? Look at its feet, all of that kinds of things. Look, if it's drooling, look inside its mouth, take pictures, take a video, and then you post your question. Because I think a lot of people rush to try to help. Without getting the full information and I'll tell you a little story when I was a kid. My mother and I were in Mexico and we were a little lost. And so we went to a group of three men on a corner and said, do you know where whatever is. And all three of them said yes, and all three of them pointed in a different direction. All three of them wanted to be helpful, and they weren't doing anything to deceive us. I think that there's a need to want to help. And so people try to do something. When they don't have the skills, the ability, the knowledge to do that. And so it's really hard for a newbie or somebody who's not familiar with the condition to weed out what it is. Because you can scroll through the responses and you can get ten different diagnoses. Get antibiotics, don't use antibiotics, isolate your bird, kill your bird, all of these things. So I think that you have to find a really good source. That's based on science. And the reality is when you're on Facebook, Anybody can say anything and it doesn't get screened.

  Jennifer: 14:49

  That is a true statement. And I will have to tell you that I have been banned from most of the large chicken groups. Have

  Claire: 14:58

  you? Yes, I have. And sometimes they won't even tell me why it even places that I thought I had a good relationship. I'm suddenly blocked. There are groups that refused to talk about euthanasia. And I think that's a really big one that they will not allow any conversations. And so my mentor, Dr. Vicki Bose, who's a veterinarian and avian pathologist. is horrified by that. If you cannot take it to a vet, if your bird has a terminal condition, if your bird is in pain and suffering, and pain can be physical pain, but also fear, you need to do something about that. You can't just put your bird in the coop and hope it dies in the morning. You wake up the next day and it's not dead and you just keep letting it go. Because people often say, my bird has been ill for weeks. And those groups say, try antibiotics, try this home remedy, try, Epsom salt

  Jennifer: 16:06

  baths. Oh my God.

  Claire: 16:07

  So let's put it this way. If you were sick and on death's door, would you want to be stripped naked and put into a bathtub? I've been giving my chicken a bath every day for a week and it's not getting better. It's probably, in shock. Yeah.

  Jennifer: 16:23

  Just out of curiosity, how many Epsom salt baths have you given chickens?

  Claire: 16:28

  I give them for. bubble foot. And I've given it for vent cleat when I'm trying to clear off. I've only ever had one case of vent cleat, trying to clear off all of that stuff to find out what was underneath. But it's not, my chickens do not get bathed on a regular basis.

  Jennifer: 16:50

  No, I've never done an Epsom salt bath, ever.

  Claire: 16:54

  Epsom salt, it has the word salt in there, it is not a sodium, it is a magnesium. You can't substitute table salt, because Epsom salts come from Epsom, England, and it is a magnesium, that's a drawing thing. If you had an infection, You might use Epsom salt.

  Jennifer: 17:17

  Makes sense. But a bath is going to stress a bird. Because it's not normal. And so if it's already stressed because it's sick. You're just stressing it more. Yes,

  Carey: 17:30

  and a lot of people don't realize that and like for like in people When you're more stressed your immune system is not good It makes it worse. So your conditions worse. Don't go dunking it in a bucket of water

  Claire: 17:46

  Nope, and I think about okay if you were sick, what would you want? You'd want a nice cozy bed, be warm, and have somebody bring you something nice to eat or drink. Your chicken probably needs to be isolated in a quiet, darkened place where it's warm, and allow it to, allow it, to see Is it eating or drinking? Is it pooping? And try to monitor from there.

  Jennifer: 18:15

  Yes I 100 percent agree. So let's just go through a couple of these. Let's start with lash egg because that was how I was introduced to you. So I have never had a case of lash egg here. So tell me how you would. First, make your list of symptoms and then come to that conclusion.

  Claire: 18:34

  Okay, so LASHAG is a common term for salpingitis, and that is a bacterial infection in the oviduct. So it's, tends to be an accumulation of different bits of an egg and bacteria. And over time, so at first they look like little rubbery things, but over time they take the form of an egg because they're in the oviduct. It's not an egg. It's formed by the oviduct and then it has lamination. So if you cut it in half, it looks fantastic. It's all these little layers. of pus and yolk and other things. I've never had a bird pass a lash egg. So sometimes people say, I found this weird rubbery thing. in the nest box and I don't know who it came from. So I asked my mentor, Dr. Bose, what would you do? She said sometimes when they are small like that, the infection is encapsulated in the lash egg and it gets passed. You don't have to do anything. You also need to determine who it's from. And often online advice says it's a bacterial infection, therefore Give everybody antibiotics. If you have a flock of 30 and only one has a bacterial infection, you do not give antibiotics to 29 other hens. I have found lash egg or self meningitis upon necropsy. And so you cut the bird open and it's wow, this thing was inside. And at that point, it was too big to pass. And at that point, it's too big to save, because you can give that bird antibiotics, but where does that mask go? It's not going to pass. I do know people who've spend money on a bird to remove like a mouse from egg yolk peritonitis. Because it's the size of a baseball, it's not going to come out, but there's no guarantee that's not going to get repeated. So I think when you find something rubbery, weird, cut it open, it's clearly not an egg in the nest box, it's a wait and see. If you've got a coop cam, great. If you, and you know what, you asked what the symptoms are. Sometimes the symptoms are nothing until death. I've been totally surprised when I found my first salpingitis, or I've had birds that look pretty good. And then I looked at them and I thought, Oh no, here's somebody that's sick. And they hide those symptoms so well. And if you're at this time of year, I leave. early in the morning. So my birds aren't up. The automatic door opens when I come home. They're already in or on their way to bed. I don't see them until the weekend. So it's really possible that a hand on Sunday could go downhill by the end of the week. And then it's already too late. That would be, what do you do so you can send your bird for a necropsy where I am in British Columbia. We have the ministry of agriculture that subsidizes necropsies. So your first submission of a calendar year, which includes up to six birds, if they died around the same time of the same cause for 25. Dollars. I've heard of other states where they charge 300 or some places like teaching veterinary hospitals where they're free. So you can send that bird in and you can ask for a number of things make sure that you know what you're getting and what you're paying for because some people real didn't realize they paid for the gross necropsy, but no microscopic work, no lab work. Or you can do what I call a DIY necropsy. I've written an article about it. Make a list of all the symptoms and then you take your bird and you cut it open and Trying very carefully take pictures of everything as it looked when you opened it up and then very carefully Remove every organ take a picture front and back and make a note did something smell was something Too big or too small hard soft, was there bile did Yep Yellow liquid goes spurting out any of those things and then you can post it online and that can you can often see Tumors on a liver or salpingitis or something? You don't need to spend three hundred dollars on that and so the series that I have with my mentor is That people send me those pictures or I collect them. We look at them and then We call it best guess or, show and tell. Sometimes we call it gore fest, depending on what it is. And some things she can look at and like she can say, I know exactly what that is. And then other things she'll say, I don't know, but it could be this or that. And if it was this is what I would do. And if it was that, sometimes it's about monitoring. Sometimes it's about how did a bird to this state. when it probably should have been euthanized long ago. Really allow birds to suffer. And I know they're resilient and I know sometimes they will survive. But if you're going to have catastrophic injuries, you need to look at pain management as well. This idea that people say birds are stoic, therefore they don't experience pain. Of course they do. If you just had your wing ripped off, or your leg ripped off, or you got attacked by a predator, you're in pain. If you've got a mass inside you. So one of the things I'll talk about is that penguin stance. So when you see a bird walking totally upright, like a penguin it's usually a couple of things. Ascites, which is water belly. It's an accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity. And at first, it's probably totally pain free and the bird can survive just fine. But as that fluid accumulates, it starts to pressure, press on the internal organs. And so that bird is walking upright, trying to take that pressure off. That bird's in pain. The other thing it might be is a mass. And a mass could be salpingitis, sometimes it's cancer or something. You'd be amazed at what you find on a necropsy and you think that bird looked relatively normal on the outside and what was going on in the inside.

  Jennifer: 25:32

  First I'd like to also say that it's important to know what you're looking at. First, we also need to define necropsy for people who don't know what they are. That's when you dissect a deceased animal look at what's going on the inside in order to see what may have happened and you can do it yourself or you can pay your Department of Ag in your state to do it. If you also butcher your own chickens for your meat supply, you will learn as you go what it should look like. Harvesting Cornish that will enlighten you pretty good at what you shouldn't be seeing in there. I saw my first we're getting off topic here, but I saw my first I think they call it spaghetti breast.

  Claire: 26:22

  Have

  Jennifer: 26:24

  you heard of that?

  Claire: 26:26

  I have,

  Jennifer: 26:27

  I saw my first one this year and the breast meat, it literally looked like spaghetti noodles. But it also had grass in it. Somehow the grass had made it all the way into the breast meat. It was not good looking.

  Claire: 26:43

  No, you don't want to eat it.

  Jennifer: 26:46

  No, you didn't want to eat this.

  Claire: 26:48

  No, and people post Cornish necropsies, like they butchered them, and then they show a liver and say, Oh, what is this? You don't want to eat any bird that's had filter organ issues. So the kidneys and the liver. So it's like you're going to toss those ones. And so it can be tumors. It can be cancer, can be Marek's disease. So Marek's is one we can talk about. Marek's and Leukosis both cause tumors and they are often very similar in their symptoms. Marek's tends to affect birds around. 7 to 10 weeks or around sexual maturity doesn't usually affect older birds. I've had Marix in my flock and Dr. Gose did the first necropsy that diagnosed Marix in my flock and that bird was 21 months old. She said in three decades, that's the oldest bird she had seen with Marix. If it's leucosis, it takes far, it's a very slow developing the tumors. So it takes much longer. So if you've got a two year old bird, it's probably leucosis, but you really do need a professional necropsy to determine those because leucosis can spread from hand to chick through the egg. Whereas Merrick's doesn't.

  Jennifer: 28:14

  So what would be the symptoms of the two?

  Claire: 28:17

  Okay. So Merrick's. They form tumors in different places. So Merrick's can form in the eye. It's called ocular form of Merrick's and often it's a gray eye. And on Facebook, any weird looking eye, everybody screams Merrick's. It could be cataracts. It could be glaucoma. It could be a penetrating injury. It doesn't have to be Merrick's. Merrick's eye is quite, it's often gray. And then it can form tumors on the sciatic nerve. So limping is a big one. People often talk about my birds limping and they look at the foot. But the limp might actually originate internally. So if there's tumors on the sciatic nerve, you're gonna get limping. And when they curl their toes, so it looks like they're forming a fist, and they walk on, it's called knuckling, so they're actually walking on their knuckles. That's typical of Marix. There can be a visceral form of Marix. So the internal organs have tumors. It can also be, there's neurological. So you get tumors on the brain and I've had a number of birds with Merrick. So I've seen what it looks like. I haven't had leucosis, but they share some of those same things. They both form tumors.

  Carey: 29:38

  So tell me this, if you have a bird that has marriage, what do you do?

  Claire: 29:41

  Okay. So I panicked when I read that first necropsy. So I sent birds and they came back positive and I thought this is the end of my flock. I have to kill everybody and I will never get birds again because Marix can live in the soil in the environment for five years. So I called Dr. Bose and I was like, Oh my God, what am I going to do? And she talked me off the ledge. She said, Marix is not the worst thing you can have. And in fact, probably. Every small flock has Marix. There is more than one strain, and not every flock will become symptomatic. Why my flock did after having 10 years of birds, I don't know. And not every bird will be positive in a flock, and not every bird who has Marix will die. And that has been borne out with me. So the first year, I had a mother and three of her chicks, and I'll die of Marix at different times, and then the next year I had nothing. And then for the next three years, I've had two young birds die, and they've always died around 10 weeks or around sexual maturity. And that's it for my whole flock. What she said is keep your birds healthy because Marix is triggered by stress. So all your birds carry something, it's if I walk into a room and I have a cold and I'm coughing and sneezing, not everybody's going to get it and not everybody who breathes in my germs is even going to get it. So what you're trying to do is build up healthy immune system and reduce stress. Stress is often caused by lots of fluctuation of birds in and out of a flock, people start off with a few and we call it chicken math, right? So they got you, but now they want. They want a brown bird, then they want a black bird, then they want a green egg layer. And I liken it to what happens if you lived in a house with four roommates and you liked them and everything was going and then your landlord decided they wanted to move in a few more. Oh, and then they moved in a few more without asking you, right? And that's how chickens feel. They are flock animals. They have a hierarchy and a pecking order, and you keep disrupting that. And that's a really stressful things and birds will kill other birds out of that stress. So think about. If you're a newbie, what's your maximum? And I would suggest you get your maximum at the very beginning and not do this in and out thing. And in and out also is more likely to bring pathogens into your flock. Something that even a healthy looking bird might carry.

  Jennifer: 32:34

  Yeah, we did a podcast a few weeks ago on quarantine. And that should limit that, but the stress that you're talking about, like if you're at work and you get stressed and your neck and your shoulders start hurting, that's a physical response to your stress.

  Claire: 32:51

  And

  Jennifer: 32:51

  so the birds, when they get stressed, they're going to have that same kind of physical reaction. And their immune system is more delicate than ours and it's going to impact it.

  Claire: 33:02

  Sure. You have a, what's called a flight or fight response, and that's about cortisol. It's meant as a surge to get you out of a, an emergency situation, but when you're under stress, you are releasing that cortisol into your system all the time. And in people, it makes you sick, but it does in animals too, so I would, it was, it's about understanding your flock dynamics. It's about, have there been any predators around are they competing for water, for food, for roosters, for nest boxes, make sure you have multiples of all those things. Sometimes. Pecking occurs at night when people are fighting, or chickens, are fighting over the roost bars, all of those kinds of things. And a lot of

  Jennifer: 33:53

  this stuff can be handled through just simple observation, 10, 15, 20 minutes.

  Claire: 33:59

  You learn a ton of things. From your birds. And people say things like, Oh my roosters are fighting and nobody's dead yet. They'll work it out. That's stressful for both the winner and the loser, right? It doesn't matter that they're not necessarily drawing blood. It's stressful.

  Jennifer: 34:18

  So I have to tell you a little story, and you'll appreciate my little story. So I had a turkey hen, and her name was Fannie Mae, and she was really, she was a witch. And every night, she would be the first on her roost. And then the chickens and the other couple, I had a, it was a mixed flock at the time. And the chickens would get up, and they'd be the last ones up there, and she'd wait just before dark. Just right when they can't hardly see again. And she'd put her head down, she'd turn sideways, and she'd bulldoze every one of them off that roost. And then they would end up sleeping on the floor underneath of her, and be covered in poop and everything else in the morning. So it took us a while, some observation every night to see what in the world is going on in this coop. And that darn turkey, I'm going to tell you, she lived to be like six years old. The simple fix was, because for the turkeys I used two by eight, We just took some like six inch pieces of board and screwed them straight standing straight up and we made bedrooms on the roost. Oh, she was so mad. She would get up there and she'd be so mad, but the tickets could then stand, on the roost. And she couldn't bulldoze them off anymore. But just that simple observation fixed the entire problem.

  Claire: 35:44

  I think just sitting, take a coffee out there and watch them and you'll learn, who's the dominant and who's not. I've heard of stories where if you have an automatic door or a door, the dominant one will stand just inside the coop and stop them from coming in at night. And the door goes down, but just watch all of those, but you'll also see who is standing off on their own and who's fluffed up a bit, who see, sometimes when chickens are sick, they seem to be eating, but when you watch them really closely, it's just pecking mindlessly. I think it's like a instinctual behavior, but you realize, yeah, they're pecking at food, but they're not really eating. And then you realize, oh, this is a sick bird.

  Jennifer: 36:32

  Yeah. So do you medicate your birds very much? Do you have a medicine cabinet?

  Claire: 36:38

  I did my whole presentation at the Backyard Chicken Summit on first aid kits and health checks. And in my first aid kit, I've got, tons of stuff. Medication, no. What I've never used antibiotics. I haven't had a lot of bacterial infections. In Canada, we have to go through a veterinarian to get drugs. You can't just buy them at Tractor Supply. I have a really good first aid kit. It's like two taco boxes. And I've got all kinds of stuff. But

  Jennifer: 37:13

  like what kind of stuff?

  Claire: 37:15

  Wound care, I've got dressings and vet wrap and calcium and different vitamins vetericin, antibacterial spray, polysporins with, okay, here's something people say you can't use polysporin with cane in it, like the suffix cane, they say, Oh, it's toxic on chickens. I asked Dr. Bose and she said, those studies have been done in canaries and small birds, not in chickens. And actually it's better to use like a polysporin with pain relief because that's probably the only pain relief they're going to get. So that's something that's said on Facebook all the time. Do not use pain relief. That's not. So I have a lot of Oh I, so when my hen had vent glee, it's a yeast infection, right? So it's similar vaginal yeast infections in women. And so I went to the pharmacist and I looked and the The name brand stuff was so much more expensive, Monistat or Conestin or something. So I went to the pharmacist and I asked him if this no name brand was equivalent. And I said, it's for my hen and I think he thought I was using a euphemism because he went through his speech and he said, Oh, is there any chance she's pregnant? And I said, hens don't get pregnant. And he was so embarrassed, so I have things like that. Monostat, kinestin. So with a vent glee, you not only have to put it externally, you have to insert it with the plastic applicator inside the vent and also give them a pea size amount of the cream or a cut up tablet orally. I just gave it to my, I had the cream on my finger and the hen ate it every day. I didn't have to worry about trying to jam it into her.

  Jennifer: 39:17

  So I've never had vent glee. So how common do you think that really is?

  Claire: 39:22

  Okay. I've had chickens for 15 years and that's the only case I've ever had. And it was the quintessential case of stinky vent. What was coming out of her and it took 11 days to totally get better. People think it's pasty butt. Pasty butt is something that chicks get. Vently, there's a totally different thing that hens get.

  Jennifer: 39:45

  Correct. Yeah.

  Claire: 39:47

  But, I don't think it's that common. I think a lot of things that people say are not that common. And another thing is, Should you deworm or not? So people say I found this worm and it's typically a round worm in a poop. And I asked Dr. Bose about that. And she said, all chickens carry parasites. The reality is it's not unhealthy unless your bird already is compromised or there's a large load of worms, but they can coexist with those. So you don't want to just keep. giving them medications on a regular basis to try to get rid of worms all the time.

  Jennifer: 40:30

  So deworming, which I've never done either it causes its own imbalance, which is just swinging you the other way. And I just want to throw this out there because it's a pet peeve of mine on Facebook. It's not a preventative. You can't prevent a worm from crawling around something. Yes. You either get rid of it or you don't have, you can't. I know.

  Claire: 40:50

  Yeah. Yeah. It's not like a flu shot prevents you from getting the flu. If they don't have worms, worming them is not going to treat anything, right? And so you're giving birds drugs on a regular basis. And people often say, Facebook folks, prescribe antibiotics. Nobody except a vet can prescribe, but they're prescribing antibiotics for things like viruses. Viruses are not, don't respond to antibiotics. They're antibacterial. And also, when I talked to Dr. Bose, she's really good because she'll say, Oh, I see that they used a certain kind of antibiotic and it's the wrong antibiotic. And I said what do you mean by that? She said they're targeted. There's a whole class of drugs and antibiotics are not interchangeable. Some of them are used for different things like your infections or broad spectrum or, various things. So you need to have the right antibiotic. the right dosage and the right way it gets into them.

  Jennifer: 42:01

  Let's talk about one more thing. Sour crop. Again, something else I've never seen in my flock. So have you?

  Claire: 42:09

  I had a crop issue once, and I think by the time I saw it and I felt it, it was an impacted crop and I was doing the whole thing about trying to massage it, trying to break it up, withholding food. And at about day 10 I was thinking, oh, I am not gonna be doing at-home surgery. And suddenly I pushed this. And I felt a pop under my finger, and it must have been encapsulated, whatever it was, and she was just fine after that. But sauerkraut is about stuff that gets held there food or other things in the crop, and then they start to ferment.

  Jennifer: 42:54

  People who don't know, I like to call this, the crop is more like a grocery bag that you're just holding food in before it gets to the digestion part of it. There's not actually anything other than that going on in the crop because the chicken will eat and then when it gets to a safe place that it's comfortable. Then it will start processing the food, so

  Claire: 43:22

  and I often get it like eating hay, something long, but something that can already have molds and things on it as well. You never want to feed your like people say, I've got moldy bread. Can I give it to my birds? You never want to give mold. You could cut mold off, but you're not giving moldy food to your chickens because that mold Goes and sits in their crop. Hey, that's why

  Carey: 43:47

  everybody needs pigs.

  Claire: 43:49

  Yes Sometimes you just have to think would I eat that right? Yes I know chickens eat everything but not everything is good for chickens or this idea that Oh chickens won't eat anything that's bad for them. They eat screws. They eat nails. There's all kinds of things chickens will eat. They peck at things before they even know what it is.

  Jennifer: 44:10

  Yeah. Yep. We're going, we're getting on to our time here. But we want to make sure that people understand that it may be new to chickens or thinking about chickens. It's, these things are the exceptions to the rules. It's very possible. You'll go 15 years without having a sick bird. It's not This is not something you're gonna wake up every day with and have to see and have to have a hospital ready for your chicken

  Claire: 44:37

  No, it's I okay. You'd be really lucky if you went 15 years I've had vent prolapses three times. I've had Merrick's I've had You know some predator injuries, various things through necropsies You But you do need to have a good first aid kit, and be prepared for that because, I had a dog that would eat things and it always happened at night or a long weekend and then it's an emergency and often people are posting on Facebook. The vets closed till, Monday and now it's Friday night. What do I do? And they have nothing in their first aid kit and they're scrounging around. So what I suggest is go through your house and look for things that you can already use, start assembling those things in one place. And sometimes if you have to buy something in quantity, I split it and I split the cost with my friends. So if you don't need a big thing of whatever but it's good to have an assortment of things on hand.

  Jennifer: 45:44

  Yeah. I can see that. I don't have a first aid kit myself, but I, me and Carrie are a little bit on the different side for that, but for the backyard keeper, I can, you have to have some things. I have things for the dogs and cats and stuff. I'm a little bit more ruthless with the birds. But I breed for resistance and that's a thing too, so you just have to sit down and decide what kind of bird keeper you want to be. Do you want to be somebody who's constantly hospitalizing birds or do you want to be somebody who enjoys their birds and they have a purpose on your property and or in somewhere in between? You just have to decide for yourself.

  Claire: 46:28

  So The person who works at the veterinary teaching hospital that I talked about, that's one of my collaborators. She spent 10, 000 on open heart surgery for her bird. And I've written a blog and I have some of the operating room video. This bird's case went to conferences around the world. She made People Magazine, right? Not everybody is that person. Wow. Yeah, wow. It made for a very, it made for a very interesting case study. But, it's stressful for you. It's stressful for the bird. So you need to be prepared for what those things are. You need to have some, another thing people don't have is, Where to put a sick bird. I don't have room in my coop, they say. And, so you have to have a dog crate, be prepared to put it in your garage or your basement or in your house. You can't leave a sick bird with the flock. And if you can keep it separate, then you can really monitor what it's eating, what it's drinking, what it's pooping.

  Jennifer: 47:35

  Yep. Yep. But you don't have to, you just have to be aware and make decisions. and be prepared to follow through on those decisions, whichever kind of birdkeeper you want to be.

  Claire: 47:48

  If you're not the kind of person who euthanize, who physically can't euthanize your own birds like me, I'm worried about screwing up, but I have a number of friends that I could call and they would euthanize my bird with using cervical dislocation. It's the fastest, most humane way. And I wouldn't let that bird suffer. But I definitely have euthanized younger birds, and even though I know it's the right thing to do, it's still difficult.

  Jennifer: 48:24

  Yep, it is, and it shouldn't be easy. You should, you're taking a life, and you should be aware of that.

  Claire: 48:30

  For sure.

  Jennifer: 48:32

  Alright, Claire, it's been a pleasure having you today.

  Claire: 48:35

  It's nice to meet you too.

  Jennifer: 48:37

  And we'll be back next week.

The Great Feed Experiment

In 2022, before Jennifer met Carey….Bryant’s Roost conducted a feed experiment using three fairly readily available feeds. While using quail in the trial, the conclusions could be applied to all poultry by staying with the same manufacturer. Make sense? Just have to listen to understand!

You can also check out the actual experiment paper here.

The Feed Experiment

Poultry Nerds

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.

  Jennifer: 0:24

  Well, Carey, have you and I ever really discussed our feed, my feed experiment? Because I don't think we were friends when I did it.

  Carey: 0:30

  We started ain't going to say we, I started asking you lots of questions about quail shortly after you did your feed experiment and seeing the level of detail that you put into that was one of the things that told me, Hey, this lady knows her crap. She's broke it down to. The top three feeds that she has available, then how much it is, how much it costs, how much it takes, she weighed it all, weighed the birds and everything else. This lady knows her birds and that's what started it.

  Jennifer: 1:10

  I wanted to know the birds, so I wanted to make sure that I was doing the right thing and the only way to do that. Is science.

  Carey: 1:21

  That's right.

  Jennifer: 1:23

  Can you believe that was in 22 when I did that? Golly, I'm looking at the date on it and gosh, that was a long time ago.

  Carey: 1:30

  It doesn't really seem like it seems like it's been longer than 2 years. But the dates are there.

  Jennifer: 1:38

  Yeah, they are. So for our listeners back in 22, I, if you haven't seen my setup, you can go to my Facebook page. I've been posting pictures of my setup the last few weeks and I have the ability and the space to really dial it in, to be consistent. To have that laboratory type atmosphere should I so desire and these eight weeks that I set aside in July of 22, I desire to have that laboratory type atmosphere in the barn. I did do this experiment on quail just because they grow so much quicker, but very easy to translate. The information over to any species, because it really wasn't about the bird is so much as the quality of the feed, which is what I was looking at.

  Carey: 2:40

  Yeah, and, this actually also started me on my rabbit hole of studying poultry nutrition. And you doing it with quail lets you hit all aspects of their life in a short, shorter time span than it does with chickens or turkeys, which to be honest, the science behind that is what got me interested in quail is because I've spent a lot of time breeding chickens in my life. And I've wondered, you take this and pair it with that and this trade offsets that trade. Where, what trade is more dominant in the hen or the rooster and people assume stuff, but there's really no, not a lot of reputable people behind giving those answers and for science, you can use quail to answer a lot of your poultry questions. Quicker,

  Jennifer: 3:37

  so they're behind a lot of laboratory studies, and we're not going to get into 10 full hat territory here. But, it is what it is. There is people and companies that sponsor studies. And that's going to influence because you've got to have a paycheck to make a mortgage payment. I did not have any influence was not paid to do the experiment. This was just me just getting my nerd on wanting to have the information for my Myself and when I set out to I had no idea that people would still be talking about it. I still see people on Coturnix Corner or other pages saying, Oh, I read about this experiment. I can't remember who did it. And then 40 people will come up and say, Brontrus did it. Brontrus did it.

  Carey: 4:32

  And you're like, I just wanted to know what, how my coil reacted and how I could make my bar not smell so bad.

  Jennifer: 4:40

  Exactly. So all I did was take. At the time I was using Tucker Milling, which if you don't live in the Southeast, you might not have ever heard of Tucker Milling. It's a company out of Alabama. Not far from you. I don't think.

  Carey: 4:58

  Yeah, they're about an hour and a half north of me.

  Jennifer: 5:01

  And I like Tucker Milling. It's a quality food. I have no issues to this day. Still use it. Still in my barn. Buy it by the pallet. I put them against Kambach. Which is a national brand out of Ohio, right? Okay. Quality feed that a lot of show breeders use on their show birds. It's carried by Chewy. Pretty much anybody can get it in the United States. Maybe further out. I don't know, but for sure anywhere Chewy FedEx delivers, you can get it. And then the old standby at Tractor Supply, which is Purina.

  Carey: 5:42

  Yeah. You know this, you got two majors. And one, semi regional local type deal.

  Jennifer: 5:51

  And there's a lot of people in different areas of the country that have those regional companies, their version of Tucker, essentially, that I can't get. So this, like I said, just started out as something. For me, I had no idea it was going to turn into what it did turn into so I had in my barn, I had 3 hatching time brooders set up on 1 stack. So that they got the exact same water. The heaters in their brooders were set exactly the same and they were no matter where I set them in my barn. Obviously, they had the same environment because they were in the same stack. I call them stacks. I don't know if that's the right word, but

  Carey: 6:42

  that's what I call mine.

  Jennifer: 6:43

  Yeah because I wanted it to be as uniform as possible. I didn't want anybody to say you withheld water on this one and didn't on that one. And I want it to be as uniform as possible. And it started with the eggs. These all came out of my farrow cages. I took without rereading everything, I want to say I took two eggs out of each breeder. Set for each brooder, they were all, everything was exact, is exactly the same as I could possibly make it. And then from the get go, I just fed them separately. That's all I did. One got set, fed the Purina, one got fed the quail starter from Tucker. And one got fed the turkey starter from Combok, cause they don't really make a quail starter. It's their turkey starter. Yeah, they got

  Carey: 7:32

  a, their game bird starter.

  Jennifer: 7:34

  Everything was non medicated. And then I just let them grow and kept, I did weigh what I fed them every day when I filled up those, the troughs on the outside of those breeders, I weighed it. Kept track of it and kept track of how much how much the feed actually cost at the store, broke that down by ounces and divided it up and then figured out how much, how many died. In each brooder and how much each bird cost me when it hit I think it was 56 days. Yeah,

  Carey: 8:13

  I see where you have like at 38 days, you weighed them and let's see, you did the mortality at age six weeks in your study and

  Jennifer: 8:27

  you only had

  Carey: 8:27

  one or two

  Jennifer: 8:29

  Somebody actually asked me to go forward again. So I took those birds and made breeders out of and checked the fertility rate of those breeders. How did their eggs fare their offspring fare? And so that is, I know you've got the thing in front of you is let's see. Second page, it's on there. The fertility rate is on there and it's pretty telling. I think but before we get into those numbers, I'm going to tell you something that I'd never thought that I would learn while I was doing this feed experiment. So we all know that manure stinks as a general rule, right? Yeah.

  Carey: 9:14

  Crap smells like crap.

  Jennifer: 9:15

  The Purina. brooder was horrible in a way that it's hard for me to explain on a podcast. The smell that just came out of that one brooder the moisture content of the manure was runny, almost, not like syrup, but But definitely wetter than anything else and it didn't fall through the holes, and so the birds were stepping in it, and I have never had bumblefoot on this property, ever, until I fed Purina.

  Carey: 9:53

  Wait, you had quail on wire? And you had Bumblefoot?

  Jennifer: 9:57

  I did.

  Carey: 9:59

  I didn't think that was possible.

  Jennifer: 10:00

  It is.

  Carey: 10:02

  But I will say that if you look at the feed tags, and that's something that I'll tell our listeners, if they want to email their feed tag to poultrynerds at gmail. com, we will check their feed tag out and explain to them what some of the stuff is, but Purina uses a lot of byproducts. And when you're dealing with a pellet, you have to have some. Prop products in there because that's how the pellet stays hard and close like compacts together But when you use excessive ones to keep your prices low that It gives you smelly manure.

  Jennifer: 10:43

  Okay. It doesn't it keeps your cost low. It may not keep your prices low. So that's another thing.

  Carey: 10:49

  It's the upfront cost.

  Jennifer: 10:51

  Yeah. So the, here's something else that I learned and when I ended up publishing it, I didn't realize. Also here in middle Tennessee, our Purina bags are 40 pounds. That is not necessarily the case everywhere, because some people said that in their location, that they were actually getting 50 pound bags. But so if you are shopping for feed. Then you need to pay attention to that. Make sure somebody is not trying to swindle you with a 40 pound bag because I honestly did not pay attention when I went to tractor supply and bought them. It wasn't until I was moving them. In the barn and was actually paying attention to what I was doing that I realized, this bag feels different and that was the point where I realized it was only 40.

  Carey: 11:45

  So I'm not going to name the brand name because I ain't like that. But I was talking with someone in a Facebook group about a particular type of feed. And it was, I've done a thing where I've been collecting feed tags and I have an Excel spreadsheet that has all the data in it and how it compares and this, that and the other. And I was like this particular feed is this, it's this level of protein. It's this level of vitamins dah. And this guy was like, I don't. Think you're right. And I said, buddy, I love you, but I'm looking at the feed tag. And so we got on into Facebook messenger and I sent him what I was looking at. And it happened to be a picture that I had taken at tractor supply. So he goes out into his barn, takes a picture of the bag. It takes a picture of the feed tag and it's the exact same feed like that company's name. And it's this and this formula, if you will, but the protein level was different. The vitamin level was different and the pounds was different. My feed tag came from a box store in Bessemer, Alabama. His came from, ironically, the same box store. Out closer to Washington state. So that was really weird because I would think that this company's name and this would be the same everywhere. But I have found out while studying nutrition that companies will adjust recipes geographically. Because the nutritional requirements are different based on climate. So that was a little awkward tidbit that I found out that day. So that's 1 of the reasons why when we say we're in the Southeast where I'm in Alabama, she's in Tennessee. That's the stuff that we see here. If you see something different where you are, that's why.

  Jennifer: 13:58

  I can see that.

  Carey: 13:59

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 14:00

  In preparation for talking about the experiment here tonight, and considering that I did it in 22, I went on director supplies website to get an updated pricing because of inflation and everything else. And something interesting here. So the Purina in 22. Was 2499 for 40 pounds. Today. It's 2599 for the same 40 pounds. Now, my feed store loves me. They're fantastic. But I did ask her to give me market rate and she said I'm just going to tell you what we sell it for. And the Tucker milling has not changed 1 penny and the is actually 3 less per 50 pounds than it was in 22.

  Carey: 14:53

  it's probably because you buy so much

  Jennifer: 14:55

  I guess that's possible.

  Carey: 14:57

  A lot of that, they have their profit margins, every company does, but. If I open a store selling goods and services, I'm not going to get the same price as Walmart does. So the more product you move, the better price you're going to get.

  Jennifer: 15:13

  So the turkey starter, to my knowledge, you still cannot buy it on Chewy. Now you can buy their layer and all of their other popular ones, but I don't think the turkey starter is as popular. So yeah, the flush

  Carey: 15:25

  is, I think it's like game bird flush.

  Jennifer: 15:28

  Yeah.

  Carey: 15:29

  And the game birds, they don't have that on Chewy. I've looked in the last couple of months.

  Jennifer: 15:34

  Yeah. Um, you're going to have to call your local, if you wanted to price this out locally, you're going to have to call your local dealer and you can find a dealer locator on com box website, and I know people are asking me like, I can hear it in there while they're driving in their cars. What is she saying? It's KAMBACH, K A L M B A C H. Yep. And then Tucker Milling is 1825 today. She, I don't buy it. So that's not my special price. That's just her board price. 1825, and that's a 50 pound bag. So the reason why I'm telling you this is because people assume They see 99 at Tractor Supply and they get their points and whatnot. They think they're getting a good deal. It's actually 0. 63 per pound. And Tucker Milling is 0. 37. Almost half is Tucker Milling. Yeah, and then the combat came out to 52 cents back then. So it would even be less today. It would probably be closer to 4849 cents,

  Carey: 16:45

  but, if I'm looking at it, I see that your average weight. Your, the Combock was a little lower than the Purina and the Tucker, but at let's see, that would be eight weeks. I believe the Tucker birds were at a hundred and twenty four.

  Jennifer: 17:07

  Go down one graph. That one was it just,

  Carey: 17:10

  okay, here we go. Thirty eight days.

  Jennifer: 17:12

  Yeah.

  Carey: 17:13

  You got all of them way, all the females weighed except for the Tucker milling was 262, but the other ones were in the two seventies on the size, the males, about the same. They were in the two forties with the com Bakken and Purina and high two thirties with the Tucker. So, they're really close. I would say within. Less than 20 grams. So within an ounce of each other. So now

  Jennifer: 17:48

  go down to the next graph. And that's the cost per bird to get it.

  Carey: 17:54

  It was to get it to 8 weeks, right? 6 weeks. Ok, 6 weeks. With this, a lot of people, they say, Oh, that combat, that stuff's so expensive, but you're looking at on, on this study, a dollar five to get a bird eight weeks old, and that's painstakingly counting every gram you fed that bird, for science, you got to do what you got to do.

  Jennifer: 18:18

  And so the Purina bird. Back in 22 was a buck 56.

  Carey: 18:23

  So

  Jennifer: 18:24

  let's just be generous and say a buck 60 right now.

  Carey: 18:27

  Yeah. Cause it did go up a little bit in the Tucker milling there. 87 cents.

  Jennifer: 18:32

  Yeah, exactly.

  Carey: 18:34

  So if you're trying to lower your costs, it's not a bad feed and is less than a buck.

  Jennifer: 18:39

  Exactly.

  Carey: 18:40

  And on the Tucker milling, you had to die one due to an injury. You had 2 that died on the Purina and you had 1 death with Combox. So they're all right, neck and neck with mortality.

  Jennifer: 18:54

  And you know what I have to tell you on a side note, I remember that injury. And to this day, I've never seen it again and have still no idea how he did it.

  Carey: 19:04

  That's funny.

  Jennifer: 19:05

  I know you have the hatching time brooder. And you know how the feed trough clips up on the front and it has the cage that goes over the top to keep them from escaping. Yeah, okay, somehow and I'm laughing because of the absurdity of the situation, but it killed him. I don't know how somehow he got his leg through the hole where their head is supposed to go down between the trough in the front of the brooder. And then twisted himself. So his leg came back up on the other side of the clip, up on top of the feet. And I saw that and I was like,

  Carey: 19:51

  that's crazy. Like, how did, I don't even know that only in poultry. Can you come on crap like that?

  Jennifer: 20:01

  This would have been probably a four week old bird. This wasn't a

  Carey: 20:07

  baby. Apparently it still didn't have any sense by then.

  Jennifer: 20:11

  I don't know that we can blame that on Tucker, which is why I made a note of it, because that was just a dee kind of thing. Yeah,

  Carey: 20:18

  that was one, that was definitely one of those moments.

  Jennifer: 20:22

  Yeah all right, so that was just a side note. Now, if you will scroll down, I think this is the biggest telling Of the entire experiment, yes, it was more expensive to put them on Purina and they had Bumblefoot and they were just in poor feather quality and it was just stinky and wet and and until you put them side by side, it's hard to explain, but the manure off of is dry, like sand. And Purina is more like mud and then the Tucker's just somewhere in the middle.

  Carey: 20:57

  That's, and that's where the that's where the smell comes from.

  Jennifer: 21:00

  Exactly. That's

  Carey: 21:01

  what attracts the flies and all that stuff.

  Jennifer: 21:03

  And but this next graph down here at the bottom of the next page, That's the fertility of the, those birds that grew up and then I hatched off of them.

  Carey: 21:18

  And this is crazy because with the kombach and the tuckermelon, you're at 90, 91%. That, that's a great fertility rate. For a bird period

  Jennifer: 21:31

  remember these were young birds.

  Carey: 21:33

  Yeah. What, when did you start hatching 10 weeks old?

  Jennifer: 21:36

  Yeah, probably. Cause give or take, I'm tired, got to figure at this point, I'm tired of weighing feed and everything else at this point, yeah. But

  Carey: 21:45

  like the Purina feed, which by far was like 50 cents higher per bird. So practically a lot more than the others. The fertility rate in those is 59 percent according to your data.

  Jennifer: 22:03

  And if you look at the top row there, I set twice as many eggs.

  Carey: 22:09

  I saw that.

  Jennifer: 22:10

  Try to give it a chance.

  Carey: 22:13

  And that's crazy. So and people, look, I know y'all are all going, what is, what are they looking at? Where's the document at?

  Jennifer: 22:23

  It's on my website.

  Carey: 22:25

  If you go to, if you go to bryantsroof. com and look under her blog and you're going to have to scroll.

  Jennifer: 22:31

  No, it's backslash experiments.

  Carey: 22:33

  Okay. Brian's roost. com slash experiments. Go there. She's got the documentation posted. It even describes what the poop looks like. So you know, you're driving down the road, you're listening to this podcast. Now you're going to have to listen again. You're going to have to listen again when you're looking at this document, but it tells You know, it, it goes into the details, so the bag of feed may cost more, but ultimately at the end of the day, the bird doesn't cost you more because when the food is better, they eat less when there's less fillers, they eat less

  Jennifer: 23:30

  and I'm not one to really rag on a company. I'm more 1 to just okay, that 1's not for me and I'm just not going to buy it again. And just go on about my life, but the side by side of the Purina next to these other two was so telling to me that I took all of my animals off Purina, my dogs don't even do it anymore and now my cats, I tried to take them off of it, but they just had a fit. They just want. Purina Cat Chow, so I still do buy Purina Cat Chow for them, but they're barn cats and they eat all kinds of stuff.

  Carey: 24:10

  Yeah, they, That's a treat to them. They're chasing mice and stuff like that.

  Jennifer: 24:16

  Yeah, so that's the only Purina I buy. Now, I had people who wanted to buy the birds at the end of the experiment. And I wouldn't even sell the Purina ones. I culled them all. Didn't even eat them. I just culled them all.

  Carey: 24:30

  So Tank didn't get to enjoy them?

  Jennifer: 24:32

  No.

  Carey: 24:33

  I

  Jennifer: 24:34

  can't even explain to you. Their feather quality was so poor. The feathers were real brittle and they couldn't hold their wings up and dirty. They were just dirty, dingy. Their eyes were dull. If you've never fed anything besides Purina, it would be hard for you to visualize, but just get one bag and set one group to the side and feed them differently and side by side.

  Carey: 25:03

  What I challenge people to do when it comes to that is, after you learned a little bit about nutrition, go to the feed store, look at the feed tag and compare that to one of the others. Because one thing that I have learned is just because the feed is expensive doesn't mean that it has the amino acids and the vitamins that it should there, there's one company out there that is a national retailer that advertises. a particular type of feed, one of their lines that's specifically designed to help the feathers grow. That's mainly an amino acid called methionine that helps those feathers grow. But if you look at that formula and the same company, one of their other formulas, that other formula has higher methionine Levels in it and higher last seen too, but it's less expensive. So a lot of that when they have TV commercials and stuff like that. You're paying for a lot of marketing, too. It's best to do your homework, learn a little bit about what the numbers should be, and learn how to read a feed tag.

  Jennifer: 26:20

  And also keep in mind that yes, the experiment was done on quail, but for my purposes, I started quail so that I could try things on them and see the results. Much quicker than I could with the bigger birds, because the big birds, they're going to take at least a year, potentially 2 years to even see what we're talking about here and I don't want to feed a turkey for 2 years, just to find out. Gosh, that's not the best food. I should have fed him. Lord, that

  Carey: 26:54

  would not be good.

  Jennifer: 26:55

  So you can take the information given here and transfer it over to any species. And do it for yourself. I am not saying take my word for it, but I am saying, if you don't believe me, just go get a bag and just feed chicks separately and take a whiff of the brooder and look at how they're growing and stuff. Yes, these are off the shelf feeds and carry does. Custom feeds and I'm slowly moving over to more custom type stuff and I've got some chicks growing in there right now. I have some on Kambach and some on his custom feed and there's difference in, in what you pay for. So I'm not saying you have to buy expensive stuff, but sometimes the expensive stuff is cheaper in the end.

  Carey: 27:42

  Yeah, because like I've done feed studies where you've got large fowl chickens eating two and a half ounces a day. So the upfront cost is not less by far, few bucks. But what they're consuming every day, you do save money in the long run.

  Jennifer: 28:03

  And no waste feeders are extremely important when we're talking about this kind of stuff, because you sure don't want to waste, 30 worth of feed. Nah,

  Carey: 28:13

  nah.

  Jennifer: 28:14

  Is there

  Carey: 28:14

  anything else?

  Jennifer: 28:16

  I think that me and you talked about starting to do some feed tag stuff on our website. We're going to start implementing that in 2025.

  Carey: 28:27

  Yeah, I'm cool with that. There you're going to put it on the website where people can go and actually submit a feed tag and we'll look at it and we'll talk to some other nutritionist and get their opinion and if they'll include their area, if there is a local feed meal that we work with or that we are familiar with, that we can say, Hey, look, that's great. Or maybe not, but here's a local person that can give you exactly what your birds should be eating and save you some money.

  Jennifer: 29:05

  Yeah, I sent you 1 somebody. So I get this question all the time. And a lot of times I ask you, because I'm not the feed person, but a guy sent me a tag the other day, and I sent it to you and he was feeding quail with it. And what I told him that feed was good for was free ranging chickens. It was not good for something kept in a very confined space as its sole nutritional input.

  Carey: 29:32

  Oh, that wasn't quail.

  Jennifer: 29:35

  I know, he was feeding quail. Are you

  Carey: 29:37

  serious?

  Jennifer: 29:37

  Yeah, he was. It's the sole ration. I was like, no, that's good for free range chickens that can go eat bugs.

  Carey: 29:49

  And people don't feel bad. Because we didn't know Jennifer didn't know until she did this experiment. And it took her a few months to get the data. So that's why we're here. We're here to help you all learn and help you all grow in your poultry nerdism and have fun together.

  Jennifer: 30:09

  So I'm going to set up a page on the website where you guys can upload your feed tags and that way we can see all these posts on social media. What do you think of this feed? What do you think of that feed? And we can have all this information in one place. So look for that coming soon.

  Carey: 30:32

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released and they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning and keep it exciting. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

The Livestock Conservancy

The noble mission to protect America’s endangered livestock and poultry breeds from extinction. This group find some interesting items and organizes historical documents plus tons of educational materials on their website at www.livestockconservancy.org

The Livestock Conservancy

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.

  0:16

  Mhm.

  Jennifer: 0:23

  We are here with the biggest nerd, maybe of all time, poultry nerd, Jeanette from the Livestock Conservancy. So we were just chatting and forgot to hit record. So we're starting over again. But Jeanette, welcome to our show.

  Jeannette: 0:41

  Oh, happy to talk chicken anytime.

  Jennifer: 0:44

  Oh we can do that all day. It's like the premise of the show. Tell us about the Livestock Conservancy. It's been around for what, 35 years now?

  Jeannette: 0:53

  Almost 50.

  Jennifer: 0:56

  We're

  Jeannette: 0:56

  actually going to have our 50th anniversary in 2027 and we're a national non profit and we actually got started because of the bicentennial when a bunch of living history museums came together. Wanted to showcase breeds that were around during the times of founding fathers and they couldn't find any of them and You know when they did finally You know track down a few it was a big red flag for American agriculture that these Breeds that had once been the backbone of the country were disappearing really quick in 1977, the Livestock Conservancy was formed and we've been around ever since and we work with all common livestock and poultry breeds that are found on farms and we have about 150 breeds that we Oversee conservation efforts with,

  Carey: 1:56

  I believe Jennifer might have had a little bit of a technical difficulty because she disappeared.

  Jeannette: 2:03

  Yep.

  Carey: 2:04

  Make myself a note. So with all that, what type of programs do y'all have to help continue breeds? I know that a lot of what y'all do is to help with awareness of the rarity of some of them. So tell us a little bit about some of that type stuff.

  Jeannette: 2:25

  Yeah we have a three pronged approach. And the first is it's, we call it discover, secure, and sustain. In the discovery phase, this is when we find animals that are potentially genetic resources that are in danger of disappearing, like old breeds or old flocks just recently we came across a flock of Jersey Buffs that have been around for over 30 years. 30 years and they're like the last of the Sandhill line of Jersey, buff Turkeys. And we were able to work with the owner who was having illness issues and get them placed in the hands of some a. Experienced turkey breeder that knew what to do with these animals. And, as a turkey breeder yourself, you don't just put any old male with any old female and think you're going to get a great animal, and getting animals like that into the. right hands is really important. As part of the discovery, we'll document, where the animals came from the history of the flock of the herd. The biology, what does it take to grow them out and breed them and make sure that they're well documented. And then the secure part is where for breeds that don't have stud books, we'll start stud books for them. We'll make sure that we do our best to make sure that owners of the breeds are connected with each other and start to develop a support network. We help people form breed associations. Every breed that has a strong breed club and a breed association, their breed's going to do well. So breed clubs are really important for the long term stability of a breed. And other things we'll do is research into their DNA, how they're linked to other breeds. Are there any differences with them? We're currently doing a DNA project on the part of the DNA that represents immune function. And the really interesting thing is our Rare breeds have things in their going on with their immune systems that are completely absent and commercial animals. Some really interesting things coming up in that. And then the sustained part of it is helping people connect with each other. Further help people with marketing the part where most owners fail with their endeavors with their animals is not being able to market them properly so that they, they don't become a money pit as everybody that's listening to this knows. Animals can become a money pit really quick. And so we help people to understand, what are the markets that you could tap into to sell animals or sell product. We have ongoing courses for breed associations to understand how to form a breed club, how to come up with bylaws how to serve your membership, how to put a board together, everything you could say. conceivably need to know about running a breed club or breed association. We've got those resources in our cultivating leadership series of webinars. And matter of fact, they're having a live webinar tonight, a Q and a for people that are have pressing questions about their associations and how they need help. And we do a couple of, two or three of those live webinars every year just to check in with folks to see, how their groups are going. And we do all kinds of work. We don't have animals at the office, but some of us like myself have farms and animals, but the Conservancy itself doesn't own any animals. It's our members. And our membership of the ones that have the animals another important thing about the sustain aspect is we have an online products and breeders directory, plus online classifieds. So they're rare breeds. They're hard to find, but this is the place to go. to go to find them. And that's all on our website livestockconservancy. org. Lots and lots to do. We're kept busy all the time. We do programming, sometimes live this year at the Dixie Classic. poultry show in Knoxville, actually in two weeks, we're holding a heritage turkey workshop and we brought experts in from all over the country that are some of the top people in turkeys. And we're going to talk about everything from just raising them for the holidays to breeding them, showing them, hatching them. And we also brought in a marketing expert to help people understand how to market their turkeys.

  Carey: 7:25

  See, when I saw that thank y'all posted it, I don't know, maybe a month or so ago, I was like, Oh, what am I doing? And I went, I looked at my calendar and I was like, Ooh, there's nothing on there. So I went back and I hurried up and registered for it so I could get my spot and I was all excited. Jennifer and I was talking about it the other day and she, and I was like I don't know if I'm going to come up like the morning of. Or the night before or what? And she said, it's Eastern time. And I was like, yeah, I'll be going up Friday night because I'm in central time. And yeah, no, I'm not a morning person. So I'm excited about that.

  Jeannette: 8:08

  Yeah, we got a really great collection of people there. And then Frank Reese is coming in from Kansas to serve as the judge for the Turkey show. And we'll have the turkey judging in the same room and it'll be an old fashioned table judging. And I'm hoping to mic him up so people can listen to him as he's evaluating each animal.

  Carey: 8:34

  That just made me even more exciting.

  Jeannette: 8:37

  Yeah it's gonna be great and I hope we get a good turnout because the instructors are really working their keisters off to make sure that we have a good class and pull it. I got to give snaps to Dixie. Um, poultry club, Tennessee Valley Poultry Club they've been amazing to help put this together and gave us the space and just rolled out the red carpet for turkeys. I give them a lot of credit for making the process easy.

  Jennifer: 9:07

  Do you work with the APA quite a bit?

  Jeannette: 9:10

  Yeah, we do. Matter of fact, we just successfully started a new committee within the APA dedicated to censusing. So we've got an official committee official census committee now. And what I'm doing is pulling together people from the different people that work with birds from different classes to come in to help with the census work. And we do a major national census every five years. And you want to talk about a beast of a project, trying to count chickens in the U. S. is An enormous task. And I know we don't find every single one, but we can see important trends with the breeds every time we reach out to folks and that helps guide our work in understanding what breeds need help, for instance, something like the booted Bantam, if you know anything about raising those animals, they're hard. They're really hard, if you're going to show them to have their leg feathers and good condition you need bigger doorways, you need specialized perching and, they're rare cause they're hard to show and and we had no idea they were that rare until we had a suggestion from APA about checking into some of the older Bantam breeds. And typically we don't do Bantams but we do the ones we do work with are ones with no large fowl counterpart. And APA had asked us to take a look at the numbers of several particular. Bantams like that. And the booted did come up as one that was particularly rare.

  Jennifer: 11:02

  Okay. I saw on there that you had the Cochins on the list. Are they moderately watched?

  Jeannette: 11:10

  They actually recently came off the list because with the backyard hobbyists. Their popularity's really skyrocketed, so they were just graduated from the list. But we'll still census them, because people are fickle. Some things are in, some things are out see, you never know, so they're included in the census. We count all the APA recognized people. Breeds that are in standard of perfection, so we'll keep an eye on them, but they're off the conservation priority list now.

  Jennifer: 11:42

  Gotcha. So before we started recording, you were talking about the crevs, which we've done a podcast on them before, but you got to go actually visit the castle where they originated from. You want to tell us about that?

  Jeannette: 11:56

  Yeah, that, that was a lot of fun. I've been trying to do it for years. My in laws live in France and not all that far from the Creve Coeur Anoche, and that's where the Creve Coeur breed originated was from that area and there's a great castle there, very well preserved castle, and finally got a chance to visit it and talk with the folks there. And it was very surprising. They knew very little about the history of the breed. And I'm trying to backtrack to get all my French references so that I can pass them on because they don't speak English. So I'm hoping I find my French references so I don't have to re Translate everything that I've got, but I've built a, an extensive history on the breed that's taken years and years to pull together because it's a breed that, there just wasn't a lot of solid documentation. There were mentions of it and one, one thing that was crystal clear is they were the top table bird in France for centuries. They were it. The first poultry show they had in Paris, there was a class for creve course and a class for every other chicken breed. They were very well thought of. And you had to pay a lot of money to have one on your table. And I I calculated with one of those, what was your dollar worth in 1902 or whatever. And back around 1900, it would have cost you in today's dollars, a hundred bucks to put a craft core in your table. It was they were very expensive. People would pay their leases or their rent with finished craft cores to the landlord. And And then the funny one I found out last year was in the first untethered balloon flight, the Monier brothers had three animals on the balloon. They had a sheep, a chi a duck, and a CREF Corps chicken So a Kreft Corps was in the first unmanned flight first maned flight in a balloon, a hot air balloon. I thought it was pretty cool. And when I go back to France, I find creve course pop up in the coolest places in, in art and, um, even in a church bell. I was at a big cathedral and the bell that they ring for mass I forget what you call the bell technically, but on the top of their bell was a crev core. Clara's day, so they just popped up all over the place and Normandy and Brittany and, um, I'm a history geek on top of loving poultry and when I can pull both together pulling history together on, on a breed is really what grabs people really grabs their attention when you know, there's so much more to that cow or this chicken and it's one of the real joys I have in learning things like that.

  Jennifer: 15:03

  So do you, all this research that you do, is that on your website or is that somewhere where we can access it to really get nerdy with it?

  Jeannette: 15:12

  Yeah, if you go to the breed pages I think the Crevcore history is in a PDF on the breed page. And if we so that one's out there and Another fun one to read is with the Sebastopol Goose. If you go to the Sebastopol page there was a really great article pulled together on that from a British counterpart who raised Sebastopols for many years. And We're slowly we've just got a new communications person in, so we're slowly putting more of that kind of information out there, but a few of the breeds have some great profiles on the page.

  Jennifer: 15:51

  That's great. So if somebody wanted to get involved with the Livestock Conservancy, what could they do?

  Jeannette: 15:58

  You could certainly join as a member. It's forty five dollars, and it's The best 45 you're going to spend, it's all a vast majority of it's going in directly to pull, livestock and poultry conservation and the programmatic work. We work really lean and we don't like to waste money. We want to put into conservation and so joining as a member all of the staff are members. That's how much we care about the organization. You could do the 45 a year or five bucks a month. And that gets you a basic membership, but different kind of levels to the membership. So you can get involved that way. If things are too tight and you can't be a member, then, use some of the products that our farmers are growing, visit the products, breeders and products directory and, buy from somebody maybe is that's local that has eggs from a rare breed or meat or, feathers, whatever. Um, if you can't afford to join them, make an effort to try and use some of the products that our people are raising.

  Jennifer: 17:05

  So the Turkey thing that you're doing at the Knoxville show, which is December 3rd, I think. Do you do those often around the country?

  Carey: 17:15

  It's on

  Jennifer: 17:15

  7th. Okay. Yeah.

  Jeannette: 17:16

  It's on the

  Jennifer: 17:16

  7th. Do you do those kinds of things?

  Jeannette: 17:19

  Not as often as we used to since COVID, a lot of the stuff has gone virtual and I think people still aren't traveling the way they did beforehand. But we do a lot of virtual webinars. We have a, if you go to our website. All of our webinars are on Teachable and you can access them that way. And we've got a wide variety of stuff on our social media pages. We've got one for the Livestock Conservancy. If you happen to be interested in sheep, we have the Shave Them to Save Them pages, and there's lots of educational material there. And we have a very quaint. Page two. And so lots of stuff on our social media as well. And YouTube. We have YouTube videos. We actually have a chick survey. Yeah. Yeah. We actually have a chicks in the classroom series which is, um, we were working with 4 H with their embryology curriculum that was for grades. I think we're on grade four. That's a requirement for the kids and rather than hatching commercial chickens, we connect local schools with farmers that can provide a heritage breed eggs. And so they're not only learning about embryology, but they're learning about the breed it's history. About why, conservation and the teachers love it, so that's another really fun thing we do.

  Carey: 18:55

  So last year At the beginning of each semester, I do this thing in my classroom where I talk about me and, just introduce myself. And so many of my students ask questions about chickens because they found out that I have a few, which, if you do a census you're going to get a lot of lies out of people that have chickens. because we're afraid our spouses will find out. But they asked me so many questions. So at one point I was going through some stuff in my barn and I found one of my older small tabletop style incubators that has like the clear dome. And I grabbed a bunch of eggs and I set them on my desk. And when Wednesday morning they started popping out and it was a huge disruption to the class. Everybody started having a cow. They were in amazement. Like the, our nursing program that we had down the hall, they were bringing students down there so they could watch it. It was one of the coolest experience, and a lot of kids really liked that, if any of our listeners are teachers, I would encourage them to tap into something like that because it's a really, it's a really good thing. It let me, as a high school teacher, teaching something totally unrelated to anything farm related or, It helps me teach them about responsibility and stuff because we took care of them in the classroom for a couple of days and the students got to take part in that and it was really cool.

  Jeannette: 20:29

  Yeah, typically our classrooms, they keep them for a couple of days and then they all the chicks go back to the farmers that donate donated the eggs. But what's. What was really gratifying was the extension followed up with gathering statistics from a survey of the teachers and the reduction in absence, improvement in science grades, improvement in interest in stem everything ran sky high throughout the entire chicks in the classroom program. And so we've got hard data to show that this really is an effective teaching tool where you can put some stats on it and say, the kids were engaged and, they wanted to come to school every day. Even if there was just the eggs in the incubator and not hatching. They still wanted to come in to check in, to see how the eggs were doing. Or to turn the eggs, a lot of them had incubators that didn't have automatic turners so that it could be more interactive with the kids. So you had an official turner every day. And that was a special reward for people and affected the hatchery a little bit. With a bunch of fourth graders messing around with the eggs, but that wasn't the point. And every classroom was able to hatch out stuff. They surprised me a couple of times. I was figuring I was only going to get maybe 50 chicks back and I ended up with like over a hundred, but Oh, I wasn't expecting that. So some years back,

  Carey: 22:07

  that one backfired on you.

  Jeannette: 22:10

  I can sell as many chicks as I raise, so I wasn't terribly worried, but it was unexpected I had to scramble and make a bigger brooder.

  Jennifer: 22:19

  It's not overly poultry related, but you started telling us about a project you were working on with the Choctaw Indians and pigs, so can you just give us a brief overview with that so people can see how nitty gritty, you do get,

  Jeannette: 22:35

  Yeah. Yeah. Actually I do have a chicken related archeology project. It's that's better with the San Diego Presidio and the Presidio is the original settlement by the military that was done during The time of the conquistadors, and they found chicken bones in the dig, and they, um, none of them were chicken people. And so they ended up, I don't know why, how they came to us, but they ended up coming to us and grilling us about chickens. And they said they thought they had discovered this weird dwarf chicken and they were scratching their heads. Why these chickens would be so itty bitty. And of course, as chicken people, those are called bantams. And one thing that they didn't know about the Spanish is the Spanish had specialized bantam breeds to serve as broodies. Because if you're having, as many of you might know, if you have a high volume egg layer, the likelihood of them brooding their own eggs is pretty slim. They just, they dump them and run. And in Spain, they had developed some broody breed breeds that were bandoms, which made sense. They have the high egg layers. And if you can get a little bird that eats very little feed to brood your eggs, then, you're That makes much more sense than bringing a big bird in, and you can have more of them in a smaller space. And what was really fascinating first of all they were, their minds were blown. They're like, what? They had no idea about that. So that's like a new chapter in the Presidio history. The other thing is that they have determined that if it were not for the chickens that the Presidio had, that settlement may never have survived because there were points where the supply chain coming up from Mexico was disrupted. And if it wasn't for the fact that they had a whole bunch of egg chickens there, they would People would have starved to death or become malnourished and and they've published these findings, which is really fascinating. Get to play with paleontologists every once in a while or archeologists And ancient DNA is now becoming of interest to archaeologists and the Choctaw thing you mentioned the current project we're working on is ancient DNA from Native American digs around the southeast. East and a lot of them had pig bones and we have a breed we work with called the Choctaw hog and we're comparing the DNA from the bones that have been found in the digs with the modern hogs to see if they are in fact genetically still the same animal that was being used by the Native Americans a couple hundred years ago. So that's That's writing history. It's not well documented what kind of pigs they had, everybody knew they had pigs, but knew nothing about them if, and certainly didn't know there's some still around a really exciting development is the Choctaw Nation now has the biggest herd of Choctaw hogs, but They had, they went from zero to the biggest herd just recently so it's very gratifying to reconnect the tribe with the animals that belong to their tribe. And they're, um, jumping into the project wholeheartedly. And I'm hoping that the Choctaw hog doesn't stay super rare and that, they get spread out to other parts of the tribe too.

  Jennifer: 26:28

  It sounds like you lead an exciting life and you find out all this cool stuff that, that some of us just wish we knew.

  Jeannette: 26:37

  Yeah, it really is. It's hard to sum up everything I do because I never know day to day. So I don't know why I'm so washed out here. Is that better? Okay. It's hard to say what I do day to day because. It's always different and it's all, I find extremely fascinating and and meaningful. What we're doing is basically saving diversity for agriculture. And any school kid can tell you about, Biodiversity and why it's important in, jungles and in different, habitats and, but the same is true for agriculture, biodiversity is really important and we can't take it for granted. And once you lose it, that's it. Like the Krevkor, they've been around since the 12th century and the animals that we use to create that breed, they don't exist anymore. So once the Krevkor is gone, that's it. They actually, one thing I hadn't mentioned was we're hoping to start collecting cells from all the Foundational rare breed chickens because as AI has become a huge threat to American poultry we're trying to save what we can just in case so I'm hoping that's going to be something I'll be working on this coming year. So yeah, lots of exciting stuff.

  Jennifer: 28:08

  Yeah. You're going to have to come back like every year and tell us everything you've done this year.

  Jeannette: 28:14

  I'd be happy to.

  Carey: 28:16

  That would be really cool if I could somehow just preserve the line of reds that I have. That would be awesome.

  Jeannette: 28:23

  You talk to me when this is over and we're we're just starting to put together a plan. We're waiting to see what the, the funding comes through, but that takes time for approval. One other thing I wanted to mention is that we are a resource for folks. We do offer micro grants. Once a year they open up in May and you have till August to put in an application, but they're up to 2, 000 and it, they're aimed for people already doing good work, rare breeds. They're not gonna, they're not typically money that we give to people to get rare breeds. We want to reward people that are already doing good work with rare breeds. And I'll tell you, there are a lot of proposals in for incubators and building bigger coupes and if it can take your work with that breed to the next level it, it's amazing what 2000 bucks can do for a poultry project. We had one project with cotton patch geese and the owner had a real challenge cause cotton patch get really aggressive during breeding season and they'll, smash eggs from rivals or they crush babies because they're too busy fighting. She was able to get a grant and modify the coop structure so that the pairs weren't beating each other up. And she went from 50 percent survivability to almost 100 percent of every gosling that she, she raised because she was able to make modifications in the coop to prevent all this stuff from happening. And, um, yeah, I think that's it. 2, 000 can go a long way for folks, or if you have, a bloodline that you'd really like to add to your program, but you can't afford to, pay to have them shipped or for you to go get them we can fund stuff like that. We fund poultry Fencing, if people want to do a better job with predator protection, we get a lot of folks that want to get electronet fencing so it, it'll fund all kinds of stuff, but the next one will open up in May, and you'll see on our website the winners for this year we'll be announcing that in January. There are a few poultry projects there, and there's a youth category too. So not just for adults.

  Jennifer: 30:53

  Oh, good. That sounds well, it has been a joy having you here today. We thank you. Sorry for all of the digital issues we had there at the beginning. So tell me the farmers, we're not tech people.

  Carey: 31:08

  If someone wanted to get involved and like help take part in the stuff that y'all do, how would they get in touch with y'all to do that? What would they need to do?

  Jeannette: 31:21

  They could certainly join check out our website, our social media pages if they want to contact us directly, that would be info at livestock, conservancy. org. And Yeah we love hearing from folks and so that would be the best way to reach us.

  Jennifer: 31:40

  All right. We'll have to have you back next year so you can tell us about all your cool stuff that you did.

  Carey: 31:46

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

  32:14

  Mhm.

What Kind of Heat is best for the chicks?

There are 4 options on heat for your brooding chicks, we discuss pros and cons of all of them so you can make the best decision for your set up.

Chick Heat

Poultry Nerds

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible. So since it's winter time and all that good stuff. We're going to talk about heat sources.

  Jennifer: 0:32

  Yeah, I could use some heat right now. It's cold. The wind's blowing.

  Carey: 0:37

  I don't have heat in my house except for what's in the fireplace.

  Jennifer: 0:43

  My stove's been going all day, so the kitchen's nice and warm.

  Carey: 0:48

  Let's talk about how not to burn your barn down.

  Jennifer: 0:51

  Don't use heat lamps.

  Carey: 0:55

  And the, here's what kills me is in every chicken group this time of year, Somebody posts at least one news article that has a picture of a flaming barn, and it talks about the use of heat lamps, but people still do it.

  Jennifer: 1:14

  I think people think it's not going to happen to them, but those stories are real.

  Carey: 1:19

  They do happen.

  Jennifer: 1:20

  Yes, I actually know a lady in Florida and her barn burned down and she lost. All of her quail not too long ago, actually, maybe in the spring

  Carey: 1:34

  in Florida.

  Jennifer: 1:35

  Yes. I don't know why the barn burnt down, but it does happen is what I'm getting at.

  Carey: 1:41

  I really hate that for the individual and for the birds,

  Jennifer: 1:44

  but.

  Carey: 1:46

  Which, this year I talked to RIP and they're having 30s already in Florida South Florida, so it happens.

  Jennifer: 1:57

  Yep. If you have a heat lamp, which gets, I don't even know how hot a bulb gets. I have no idea. But too hot to touch. And then the metal around it gets too hot to touch. And you get some dust and some straw or, who knows a feed bag, I mean anything would ignite.

  Carey: 2:20

  Oh yeah, feed bags, they're not only are they good for starting fires in your burn barrel, but they will also rapidly accelerate one in your barn.

  Jennifer: 2:29

  Yep, and then we hear people say we'll use the ceramic bulbs. I have tried those and they get just as hot.

  Carey: 2:38

  I was gonna say, they, they get just as hot too.

  Jennifer: 2:41

  Yeah. So

  Carey: 2:43

  I just don't

  Jennifer: 2:44

  use them.

  Carey: 2:44

  I brewed I do winter hatches and I have a barn that I hatch in. And with that, so in order for my brooder plates,'cause I use the big brooder plates, in order for them to be able to do their job, I did mount a heater in the roof of my barn that is designed for barns. It is a commercial heater. And even with that, I get nervous, but it's hooked up to a thermostat. It only comes on when it goes down below 50 inside the barn, but it's a real deal.

  Jennifer: 3:30

  I only use brooder plates. I I would guesstimate that I would be on the medium to larger side of hatching, barn size. And I still use individual tubs. And I still use individual 10 or 12 inch brooder plates, and I may have at any given time. I think I think 13 or 14 is about my limit. I have nine on as we speak.

  Carey: 4:04

  I was going to say how many you say you're on a. So, you do hatch a few birds.

  Jennifer: 4:10

  I do hatch a few birds, but I'm in between hatches right now, so there's five brooders empty. I only have nine plates going right now.

  Carey: 4:18

  Wait till Friday.

  Jennifer: 4:21

  I hatch on Tuesdays. On Tuesday, we will have 14 plates going. Yep.

  Carey: 4:27

  But those plates, a lot of people say, oh, these plates don't get hot. A bird's internal temperature is like a hundred and four to a hundred and ten. And it's designed for them to be able to have contact with it. So I

  Jennifer: 4:44

  have to educate a lot of people on how to use brooder plates. They are used incorrectly and if you don't use them correctly, they're not going to work right. So first of all, a brooder plate will not heat up the space. It will only heat up the chick touching it,

  Carey: 5:02

  right?

  Jennifer: 5:03

  It's like wrapping yourself in an electric blanket. It's not going to heat up the room. It's just going to heat you up. touching it. So the floor can't be cold. So all my brooders are up off the floor. You set the brooder plate itself on an angle. Depending on which species you're hatching. If it's quail, it might be a half an inch on one side and two inches on the other side. If it's a chicken chick or A Turkey pulp maybe two inches on one side and four inches on the other side. What, and what that does is it allows the chick to go underneath of it and pick, do I wanna be squished up and,'cause I'm chilly and I wanna be squished up and touch as much of it as I can. Or do I just want to let somebody else be squished up and then I touch them and suck their heat out? So it and as they get older, they don't need as much supplemental heat and then they can gauge it themselves that way. They will get on top of it. They will make a mess. That's just a fact of life. I see people put Saran wrap in parchment paper and all kinds of stuff. I do not do that because I feel like that is a. Fire hazard myself.

  Carey: 6:24

  Wait, you mean plastic melts and catches on fire?

  Jennifer: 6:27

  Oh, yeah.

  Carey: 6:28

  When it gets hot.

  Jennifer: 6:29

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I won't ever tell anybody to do that so I just take a scraper. They have Harbor Freight. I always get the two. Junk tool stores mixed up. I call them junk stores. Harbor freighter, that other one. Yes, thank you. You can go in there and I think you can get a six pack of plastic assorted size for 4 or something. And I have scrapers all over my barn and. You just scrape it off and go about your day. Just part of having poultry is something's going to get messy. Especially if it's ducks. Now, if the ducks can brood with brooder plates and it can survive the wetness of ducks then you're doing really good.

  Carey: 7:17

  And ducks, people talk about winter hardiness and that kind of I've seen ducks swimming in the water. while it was snowing.

  Jennifer: 7:29

  Do you know how they can do that? It's just a little trivia tidbit, but do you know how, why they can do that?

  Carey: 7:35

  There's got to be something to the down that's in their feathers.

  Jennifer: 7:38

  Nope. So in their leg, their artery and their vein are side by side touching. And so the warm blood coming out of their heart keeps the return blood in their vein warm so their legs don't freeze.

  Carey: 7:54

  There you go.

  Jennifer: 7:55

  Yep. Pretty cool design, huh?

  Carey: 7:58

  Almost like it was done on purpose.

  Jennifer: 8:00

  Yeah. So my ducks will be out there swimming in what about a two foot diameter circle sometimes, and they're perfectly fine.

  Carey: 8:12

  So how do you suggest people heat their hen house?

  Jennifer: 8:17

  I don't right now I, everywhere I see people are buying the painter's plastic and stapling it up. If you want to, if you got nothing better to do, but my walls are wire, and the wind is blowing probably 40 mph right now, and it's about 30 degrees outside. My chickens are just fine, up until people had fancy coops, they lived in trees. The wind blows in the trees and the trees move

  Carey: 8:47

  and C2, when you put that plastic on, if it's not 110 percent secure, every time it makes a little ripple sound or something like that's going to stress your birds out. And when they're stressed out, their health is not as good. Their fertility is not as good and they don't chicken. They're nervous. They're afraid someone's trying to get them. Like mine. So for me, I've got wire cages and my, I have in some of them, I have metal like sheets of metal around the bottom to help ward off predators because I live in the woods and I have a lot of raccoons. And I have the metal there. So if they, when chicks hatch out and they poked their head out or whatever, that doesn't happen. But. I've got some of my single comb large fowl that they won't, they don't want down there. It's in the thirties and the wind's blowing outside right now and they're up on the top roost, fully exposed to the wind and they're, they got their comb just flopping in the wind and I'm like, dude, you gotta be cold, My, one of my Rhode Island Reds, his name is Houdini and, he's just flapping the thing in the wind and I'm like, I don't want you to get frostbite. So I actually did get a barrier and stick it up there on the side where the wind mainly comes from. And I bolted it to the Kate, the fencing or. Yeah, the fencing to the post to block it right at the roost, because, chickens ain't that smart. But aside from that, I'm not putting a heat lamp in there.

  Jennifer: 10:39

  So let me tell you what happened to me. It'd be. Not last year, but the year before when that Arctic freeze came through at Christmas and it was like zero. And that was the reason why I insulated the barn. Okay. So my barn faces South. My coops are the main, are the lean to's. side. So one lane two, which is the main coop, faces west, which is where the weather comes from. And the other side faces east, gets the morning sun. No wind on that side. When that Arctic cold came through here, I had zero issues with the birds on the west side that were getting the full brunt of the wind. The coop filled with snow. Zero issues. Nobody was sick. Nobody got frostbite. Nothing happened to any of those birds. The east side that was protected from the wind, every one of them birds got frostbite. Now both sides are wire walls. Now you explain that one. That doesn't follow everything on social media at all, does it?

  Carey: 11:57

  No, it don't. But see last year one of my Rhode Island Reds did get frostbit on his comb. And because I didn't put Vaseline or none of the other crap on there. Because they're chickens.

  Jennifer: 12:12

  I didn't either.

  Carey: 12:14

  That Houdini is, he's special. I just put that up there to block the direct wind and, I will say that if it's going to be down below freezing for an extended period of time he does have a nice little cozy space inside the barn.

  Jennifer: 12:33

  Yeah.

  Carey: 12:33

  That he'll come into.

  Jennifer: 12:35

  So if I if it gets like that Arctic freeze again comes through something like that, I'll just bring out the show cages and bring everybody inside the barn, but I'm not going to do the frostbite again, but that will be the ones that are, first of all, the show birds. But the ones that are on the east side of the barn, not the ones on the west side of the barn. They'll be fine.

  Carey: 13:00

  They're on the west side.

  Jennifer: 13:01

  The upper west side.

  Carey: 13:02

  That's right. So let's talk about commercial style breeders like the GQFs and the Hats and Times. Like the

  Jennifer: 13:12

  tower ones.

  Carey: 13:13

  Yeah, Tractor Supply used to, they actually, I want to say last year they quit making them. They do still have some stock somewhere around. I think Producers Pride is who made it for them. But I've asked locally and they said they can't get them anymore because I actually found one of those units for a little of nothing. And I need, it needed some pieces. So I was trying to see how much they were. Did

  Jennifer: 13:41

  you ever go look at it up close?

  Carey: 13:43

  Yeah,

  Jennifer: 13:44

  okay. Yeah, that's a big piece of equipment

  Carey: 13:49

  They're massive.

  Jennifer: 13:50

  Yeah, and you need to be able to access all four sides

  Carey: 13:54

  Which means you need to have it essentially in the middle of the floor

  Jennifer: 14:00

  Yep There was a guy locally that had a five sack of one and it was just basically a giveaway price and I went over there actually twice Trying to talk myself into getting it because I could use it And I just couldn't bring myself to give up that much for space. It's just, it was massive and all it basically is a metal, I don't know, shelving unit with a tractor supply heat plate in it. Did you look at that? That's all it was.

  Carey: 14:32

  The heat plates that they have are the producer pride, the big ones that have the low and the high.

  Jennifer: 14:40

  Yep.

  Carey: 14:41

  And I have in my wooden brooder box, the one that's like a coffin. I actually have, it's two feet wide. No, yeah, it's two feet deep and eight feet long and it has a, Barrier in the middle. The thing does look like a coffin now. I have since retrofitted it with a couple of feeders that I can know spills that I can access from the outside and but inside of it, I've got some of those brooder plates that go in the tractor supply tower. Because they're huge. It's like the what is that company? Renicot, the one that makes the good cups and all that. It's as big as their a hundred dollar one. It's huge. They work pretty well, so yeah, but those brooders, they're nice, but they're not very portable.

  Jennifer: 15:42

  They're very heavy

  Carey: 15:43

  and when you're not hatching, they're in the way.

  Jennifer: 15:46

  When is that? Is there a time when we're not hatching?

  Carey: 15:52

  Okay. Valid point. So they're just in the way. We

  Jennifer: 15:58

  have a mutual friend and she has several of those. She likes them. They work great. And, but she has them in the middle of her floor so she can access all four sides. I

  Carey: 16:07

  say there, she's got them in the middle of her floor and she has rows of, cages on either side of them,

  Jennifer: 16:14

  but

  Carey: 16:15

  they're, she's, they're easily accessible.

  Jennifer: 16:17

  Yes.

  Carey: 16:18

  And for me, I could brew differently and have more cages there. Now I will say the Hatch and Time Brewers, Do take up less of a floor like a footprint on the floor.

  Jennifer: 16:34

  Yes, they do fit up against the wall.

  Carey: 16:37

  Yeah They have a

  Jennifer: 16:40

  nice heater they

  Carey: 16:42

  do

  Jennifer: 16:42

  they have a thermostat on them so you can adjust the temperature.

  Carey: 16:46

  Yep

  Jennifer: 16:48

  the hatching Time Brooders would be fantastic for somebody that doesn't have a lot of space, can push them up against the wall. It has a light place, a place for a light bulb inside the heaters on a thermostat and the boxes on these commercial brooders, they don't let a draft in and that's what we're always talking about. They're up off the floor. They don't get a draft so that. That ambient heat from the heaters, from the, that brooder plate. In that case, it does heat up the space because those are built to retain the heat in there. Plus you've got all that body heat from the chicks.

  Carey: 17:34

  And another thing that I do like about them, they're not. I would call them like half a tower because they're not as wide and you can fully access them from the front. When you do get, cause I have three or four of them that are, I have three or four stacks that are, or high. When you do get to the point where one of them is empty, just wheel it out of the barn, crank up your pressure washer, boom, clean, ready to go. Spray it with some sanitizer. Let it dry. You're ready for another. A lot of hatching.

  Jennifer: 18:15

  And that was another thing when I was looking at that producer's pride one. And honestly, I'm not going to say the GQF because I've never put my arm inside the GQF one, but I could not reach across the producer's pride one. They're physically

  Carey: 18:30

  the same size.

  Jennifer: 18:31

  Oh, okay. So I couldn't reach, therefore I wouldn't have been able, the chicks run away from your arm, trying to grab them. I would not have been able to reach them all. And so I would have either had to have help on the far side or used a little net.

  Carey: 18:46

  Butterfly net going in there.

  Jennifer: 18:48

  Yeah. Yeah.

  Carey: 18:50

  See for me, the thing that, that turned me off on those is. The whole point in having a lot of brooder space is for a lot of chicks and the poo tray was like half inch deep and if you didn't empty it out a couple of times, if you had it full and you don't empty it out a couple of times a day, you're going to be in trouble with the hatching time ones, they're set up like they're quail cages and you can let the poop stack up. Or you have to take it out.

  Jennifer: 19:24

  Yeah. We like the lower maintenance, don't we?

  Carey: 19:26

  Lower maintenance, the better.

  Jennifer: 19:28

  All right. Now let's talk about the original chick heater. The

  Carey: 19:33

  hen.

  Jennifer: 19:34

  Now I've got some coachins and them are some broody mamas. They want to set all, I think they are really close to being as broody as silkies, the S word. The silkies. So they will set on those eggs and keep them nice and constant. And then they'll keep those chicks warm. I'm all about, if you're a, just a backyard breeder and you don't need to brood, let those broody hens take care of those chicks. They're going to be the best low maintenance way of doing it.

  Carey: 20:09

  Yeah. Yeah. I've got, so with it being as cold as it is right now, I actually have in one pen some six week old chicks that have never been inside of a brooder and in another pen some four week old chicks that have never been inside a brooder, unless you consider the five gallon bucket laying on its side where they hatched from the brooder. Because when they were, before they got to where they could fly up on a roost. The hen would get them inside the nesting box at night and she was their brooder plate.

  Jennifer: 20:47

  Let me just tell you how broody these coachins are. So I brought them into the barn because I ran out of space on the east side of my barn and had to bring two brooder sets inside the barn. And of course the light stimulated them and they have, laid one egg a day. So there's four hens in one and two or three hens in the other one. And each one has laid one egg in each pen and I went in there yesterday to get the egg And they were fighting over who was going to sit on the one egg One egg and there's four big massive birds. I'm gonna sit on that egg

  Carey: 21:29

  I'm like, you

  Jennifer: 21:29

  haven't even started laying yet. They're

  Carey: 21:32

  fighting for it. It's a thing like I have, this is going to be my first chicks that have never been inside of a brooder or an incubator for me. And I'm actually excited to be able to hatch off of those because to me They're getting the full experience in the colder months. So hybrid vigor should be way up there in these birds.

  Jennifer: 22:01

  Okay. So let's talk about the literal use of using a hen for a brooder. So you do not need to put a heat lamp on her. Cause then you're just going to cook her. So a hen does not need supplemental heat when she has chicks on her. We see that a lot on Facebook. And you, she does need a quiet space. There seems to be a lot of controversy of do you separate her? Do you not separate her? The technical answer is no, you don't really have to separate her. She will take care of those chicks and keep them safe from the other birds in there. The reason why I encourage you to separate is because you can't. Physically give chick starter and water to the chicks because the other birds will eat it, knock it over, drink it, and the chicks won't get it. So the separation is literally for the chicks nutrition more so than any other reason.

  Carey: 23:07

  So what I've been doing because of that is the ones in those pens I started giving them a 20 percent All Flock.

  23:18

  Here's a special offer from Carey Blackmon. It's Carey's Christmas bundle, and it's a 10 pound bag of show pro poultry supplement and a copy of Jeff Maddox's book, Niche Poultry. Regularly, the two items would cost you 86. 95. Now you can get them both for an even 70, saving you 16. 95. Plus we'll pay the shipping too. Go to www.careyblackmon.com That's MERRY at checkout. This special Christmas bundle offer runs through December 31st. So get it now before it's gone.

  Carey: 24:00

  Yes, that's a little low for a chick, but I gave them some of that, put some breeder supplement in it, stirred it up, mixed it with the oil and all that stuff like you're supposed to. And, at four weeks old, these chicks were fine. Getting up on a roost is three feet off the ground. They're obviously eating and growing healthy and strong, but that's because I had the same thing. Do I separate them? Do I not, where do I put them? Because I did not want to put them inside. I wanted them to grow up outside in that natural habitat. As natural as a pen can be. So I just. Started feeding them all a crumble.

  Jennifer: 24:46

  Now, what I have done is I have put up like a little piece of fencing with two by two, two by four holes in it and a hoop in there and put their feed and water inside of it so they could come and go and get to it. but the bigger chickens couldn't. And then mama would still, could still nest on them at night, wherever she wanted to. But, and that was usually right beside that, is where I would put that. Now, the bad side, there's some downsides to using a hen. Not all hens are good mamas. Sometimes they knock them out, they get cold different things can happen. Snakes, rats other birds can be mean to them. Gotta be mindful and observant of your hen. And make sure she's going to be a good broody.

  Carey: 25:43

  that was me, and I was worried about the rooster, but no issues.

  Jennifer: 25:48

  Yeah, they don't care. I've never had one care. He just wants to make sure he tags that mama as soon as she's back in there and ready again. That's the only thing.

  Carey: 25:59

  Look, I'm going to tell you this. I have seen her come out at like when they were little. He'd come out of the nest box. He would be, he would go over there and do his little dance and take care of his business. And then he would actually crawl in the nest box while she would go eat.

  Jennifer: 26:17

  Oh, that's sweet. That

  Carey: 26:19

  was a good brood fowl. He knew his job.

  Jennifer: 26:24

  Yeah. All right. I think that's the only four ways of heating your your chicks. Now I can give you a couple tips.

  Carey: 26:33

  Let's do tips and tricks.

  Jennifer: 26:35

  If your electricity goes out, I have everything in my barn is on the battery backup surge protectors. And obviously they're only going to last as long as you have a draw on there. But it will last you at least an hour and give you time to get out there, cover them up, make alternate plans. You're not going to be in a panic. What it's doing is it's buying you time to find out how long the electric's going to be out, And make some plans, which you should have some plans. You need some heat packs on hand. You need, tubs to put them in to contain their own body heat. Also cardboard box works fine with some hand warmers or heat packs. Um, like those shipper packs that I don't even know what they're called. That I put the heat packs in the boxes. It's

  Carey: 27:33

  the heat packs.

  Jennifer: 27:35

  Is that what they're called?

  Carey: 27:36

  Actually, I actually think that there is a brand of them out there that says heat pack.

  Jennifer: 27:41

  Yeah. I just have a big box of them out there. When I'm shipping chicks, they just stick to the side of the box and I put them in there. But anyway, they're good for 72 hours. So you need to, they're not expensive, maybe what, 2 a piece or something just to have a box of them on hand.

  Carey: 27:56

  Yeah, and if you got if you got a bunch of those, you can take them out. The ones that I get when you open the cellophane or mylar or whatever it is, the air activates them that takes them a little while to build up heat, but you'd shake them up real good and stick them in there and yeah, they're good for three days.

  Jennifer: 28:16

  Yeah. You can just put them in a, put them in a cardboard box. That's not overly huge. It needs to, be smaller to contain their body heat and to contain that heat from that heat pack and some air holes. And, they'd be fine. Just think about if you shipped them across the country, they'd be fine in there for a few days. Same concept,

  Carey: 28:35

  I'll say this. That place that we talked about earlier, Harbor Freight, you can go to Harbor Freight and if you plug all your brooder plates into a surge protector, like you should, you unplug that thing out of the wall, plug it into an extension cord. Run it outside to your little four or five hundred dollar generator that you have. Cause a thousand watt generator run 10 of those plates.

  Jennifer: 29:00

  Yeah. And keep your refrigerator cold too, huh? I actually

  Carey: 29:04

  do that.

  Jennifer: 29:06

  And yep. I think that's about it for heat sources, emergency and then the four main ones. I can't think of anything else.

  Carey: 29:16

  Oh, that's it.

  Jennifer: 29:17

  Yeah, all then that's a wrap as far as I'm concerned.

  Carey: 29:20

  Y'all have a good one.

  Jennifer: 29:21

  Bye.

  Carey: 29:22

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

  29:50

  Mhm.

Hot Mess Homestead

We chit chat on growing social media accounts for extra income, Savannah’s plans for breeding in 2025 and her new book being published. Such great fun and we wanted to share with you for Thanksgiving!

Savannah w/Hot Mess Homestead

Poultry Nerds

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Kerry Blackman, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.

  Jennifer: 0:23

  Poultry Nerds, we're here with Savannah from the Hot Mess Homestead. This is our special guest. Tell us about your homestead. How did you get the name for hot mess?

  Savannah: 0:34

  Because I'm the biggest hot mess ever. And I was talking about what I wanted to name our homestead and, everybody uses their last name. And I was trying to think of something, and this is before I had started my social media, and I'm really glad I did. Did it this way, but I was like I don't really like the way our last name sounds boring. And I was like, I like the hot mess homestead, but that doesn't sound very professional. And maybe I shouldn't do that because I was, thinking maybe one day it would be like a professional type of thing. And my mom was like, girl. No, you need to be the hot mess homestead. So I went ahead and went with that and it just works perfectly. If you've seen my social media, it definitely fits the vibe. I am not the aesthetic homestead. I don't have my life together and it's ended up turning into more of a, not a brand, but like a community of other people who feel like they don't fit in and a lot of the homestead community, because. They may be like me and may not always have their stuff together. Maybe they have ADHD, whatever it is. And so that's just how we went with it because my mom has always said I'm a hot mess lovingly. It's true. And so yeah, that's just how we came up with the name. It just organically came to me because I've always been called a hot mess.

  Jennifer: 1:46

  I'm kind TikTok even now. And so when I first found you my friend was on TikTok, And I would message her and I was like, send me the video of the girl with the green hair. I can't find her on Facebook. I don't know how many times she had to send me the videos.

  Savannah: 2:03

  That's what a lot of people call me. They're like the chicken lady with the green hair. And I'm like, I'll take it. It's an easy description. Oh yeah.

  Carey: 2:12

  But looking at your videos. They're not really hot mess. That's typical homesteading stuff.

  Savannah: 2:20

  I think it's probably more realistic than it is hot mess. I always say normalizing normal homesteads because I've never been to an aesthetic homestead and I have no friends that have an aesthetic homestead. I see them on Pinterest, but I have never encountered them in real life.

  Jennifer: 2:36

  Okay. That was weird. So how old, how long have you been on social media and how did you get started with the characters?

  Savannah: 2:43

  So I have always tinkered with social media, but really just, that's okay. You're the mess. Hold on. I specifically lectured them. I was like, don't come anywhere near the house. And here they are running up and yelling. I tinkered on social media doing My Facebook videos for like my personal Facebook and like my friends would laugh, react to it. And I was just always very extroverted and like to put on like silly shows and just, goof around. But when I ended up moving from the city that I lived in, I was married, had three kids. We lived in a regular 1800 square foot house. I had never homesteaded before. I had chickens for a little bit in my backyard. To my neighbor called animal control on me. That was fun. The day they came and took my chickens. They wrote me a citation and were like, you can only have six and I had 10 and I told him I had eight and they were like, Oh you have to get rid of them and only have six. So the day I gave them to a friend, I found my first egg. I was so irritated. I was like, Oh, this time I got one egg out of it. But so I never homesteaded before. don't come from a line of homesteaders. We're city people always liked the country. We ended up moving onto this land with my parents. We decided to move together. It's a very long story. And we ended up getting a shed house. So a little 600 square foot shed house. And my husband was able to quit his job to be able to find a different job and not work 70 hours a week. And I decided I'm going to just share this journey with you. On tiktok, because I know so many people want a different, slower lifestyle jokes on me slower, not necessarily more simple, maybe, but not any slower. And I just made a video of our journey selling our house in the city. moving into a shed in the country and starting to get chickens and, a little garden. And it just went viral. And it just started from there and just grew very organically, and I just, I'm always goofy. I have ADHD. So there's always different things popping up in my brain. And so I was like, Oh, I should make a skit about this. Or somebody would message me something really dumb on Facebook. And I'd be like, Ah, I should turn this into a video because I know so many people can relate to the Facebook messages. You post where you're located five times in the post and they're like, Oh, where are you located? And you just want to rip your hair out. So that's just how it went and just organically happened, so how long is it? How long was the timeframe there? That was three years ago when we moved it was three years ago in July. So it hasn't been that long. It has not. You've got three or four hundred thousand followers now, don't you? Yeah, I have three something on TikTok and two something on Facebook and then I don't really do YouTube or Instagram. I really don't know what it's out there. I don't ever really use it.

  Jennifer: 5:29

  Yeah, I don't

  Savannah: 5:30

  use

  Jennifer: 5:30

  it either. So a lot of the farm pages and I'm mostly on Facebook and I try to tinker with TikTok, but I'm not good at it. Um, a lot of the farm pages, they're always posting about how they want to grow and make money on Facebook and all this stuff and be monetized. Would you have any advice for those people?

  Savannah: 5:49

  Yes and no. I always tell people this because they message me a lot. Hey, I want to be able to grow on social media too. What do you suggest? I did not do things the average way of if you were to Google, like how to grow on social media and they're like, Oh, post three to five times a day. Make sure you're looking at what time you post, what day you post use the viral sounds. I don't really necessarily encourage that specifically for people to do because it creates a very, Not authentic connection with people and to me, I want to have followers that are engaging that feel like they're getting something from my content that feel like they know me in real life. And for me, that's not going to happen organically if you're just posting three to four times a day just to be able to post because for me, I can tell when people are trying to do that. Like I can tell when people are trying to get followers and that's like their only, and that's okay. If that's your only goal, but I feel like a lot of people want to do more than that, yeah. Have people actually, I know it sounds silly, but care about you as a person and you can get to know people. And I have a community and that, especially when you're using it for business, because if we're trying to, monetize on social media. It's usually, if you're a homesteader or you sell chickens or you sell goat's milk soap or whatever it is, you want those to be able to be intertwined and build off of each other. And that wasn't something I originally did because I wasn't originally planning on ever trying to ship eggs or breeding chickens or any of that kind of stuff. So I learned some things from that, but. I always tell people, I'm like, be yourself, and I know that sounds so cheesy, but just be yourself because you don't want to be putting on a show or anything like that, and you're going to end up finding your people with whatever personality trait you have, whether that is you're shy, or you're very extroverted. Don't try to be silly if you're not silly, like just Be yourself. Make sure that you have quality videos. No, that doesn't mean you have to always use like a ring light and have a perfectly, use a camera instead of your phone. But it's, people automatically are going to scroll if you have it really blurry and fuzzy and it's in a dark room. And people either on social media, they either want to be learning something and being educated on something or they want to be entertained. whether that's in a goofy way or in a relatable entertainment. People like to watch people put up their groceries. That's a form of entertainment. For some reason, sometimes we like that. We'll sit there and watch people organize their pantry or whatever it is on social media. And so you want to either do one of those two things and you can incorporate that into your everyday homestead life. You don't have to stress about it. Just start posting the kind of bedding you use in your coop and why. start posting you collecting eggs. That's one of my most popular videos. And I'm always mind boggled that people want to watch me collect eggs because to me it's so boring and mundane, but people like that kind of stuff. And so I'm like, you don't have to think super outside of the box. Like just start posting your everyday life. And as you start to get more comfortable with it, maybe you can get more creative with it. Find your niche. But the biggest thing is just start posting, stop putting it off, just record your morning routine, record whatever it is, because everybody has their own personal opinions on their homestead of what bedding they like, their feed routine, do they use automatic waterers. Post the chicken water as you use and why like it doesn't have to be crazy,

  Jennifer: 9:11

  which platform you like tick tock better. I know you've posted about that.

  Savannah: 9:16

  Yes.

  Jennifer: 9:17

  Yes. Tell

  Savannah: 9:18

  us why you like tick tock better. Not to offend anybody who loves Facebook, but Facebook, I always say is like the wild West and I say this lovingly, because I do have a lot of, different age brackets of followers. And some of my most amazing followers who are super awesome are a lot older than me, but generally the, age range that I find on Facebook does not get my sense of humor. So whenever I have a viral video on Facebook, people are like, why is this dumb green haired girl talking about chickens? Or I had somebody accused me that I didn't even have chickens and that they were fake. And I was a big fake phony and obviously I don't have chickens. And I'm just like, how like this would never happen on tech talk. They don't behave like this over there. I don't know if it's the algorithm. I don't know if it's just the vibe. I don't know what it is, but for me, people on Facebook are just meaner and just don't, it's just not the same. TikTok for me has just been so much better. The algorithm is better. I do sometimes I always post on both. I tell people all the time, I'm like, even if you think the video is dumb, or won't do well on one platform, post it on whatever platforms you're doing, because I will have a video go viral on TikTok, have a million views, I'll post it on Facebook, and there's like nothing. And vice versa. I've had so many videos go viral on Facebook, which I usually end up regretting, and they'll get like 3 million views, and it just sits at 10, 000 or something on TikTok. The algorithms are just different, but in my opinion, people are just a lot nicer and more chill on TikTok than they are Facebook. And I think that's probably because pushing it out to the different random people that don't follow me on Facebook. So they're just not getting the vibe I put out there.

  Jennifer: 11:02

  Gotcha. That makes sense.

  Savannah: 11:04

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 11:05

  Is one the monetization of one versus the other different?

  Savannah: 11:10

  I'm sure it is. I'll be totally honest with you. I don't know the exact like What they pay I will say on tik tok the rpm which is the rates per minute. So the amount you get paid per minute watched, it can fluctuate. I don't know if that's how Facebook is, but I know to talk really fluctuates because if I am not doing great, I don't really care about that kind of stuff. I truly don't. But if I'm not doing great, I'm not posting videos that are constantly going viral. My RPM will be more. So the amount that I get paid, maybe let's say a dollar and 10 cents a video or a dollar and 10 cents per thousand views, whatever it is. Versus if I'm having a lot of viral videos and I'm like, Oh great, picking up traction, that RPM goes way down. So they don't have to pay you as much. So it can really fluctuate. And a lot of people don't know that. That's why if you see these really big creators that have a million views or followers, a million followers or 2 million followers, people think that they're just making bank and they might, but it's probably not from the views because they probably have a 30 cent rate per minute. Instead of a dollar and 20 cents that a smaller creator may have versus Facebook. If I'm not mistaken, I'm not 100 percent sure because I'm not great with technology to be totally honest. I think there's more of a set rate and Facebook also. Sometimes we'll do like bonuses. I've never seen a bonus from Tick Tock, but Facebook will do like bonuses for engagement. So if you have a post that does really well and gets a lot of engagement, they'll do random bonuses. They're just different, honestly. And as far as live goes, I'm not a live person. I know a lot of people make a lot of money on TikTok live, versus I don't think Facebook live pays very much. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I've heard that TikTok is better for lives because you have all the gifts. Like people will send, I'm sure y'all have seen like you scroll and people are like, Oh, thank you for the rose. Thank you for the rose. And they're trying to get the gifts. Like they're doing reactments or whatever for the gifts. And that's because I don't think Facebook does that. So they're two different systems, as far as, what's going Payment goes, but for me, I make more on tick tock, but that's also because I am on there a lot more because everybody's just nicer.

  Jennifer: 13:26

  Yeah, do you find that? This is just popped in my head and you may not know the answer, but do you know how Facebook will shut down pages or? I don't know. Penalize them for saying the wrong thing.

  Savannah: 13:38

  Does TikTok do that too? Yeah. So TikTok can definitely do that kind of stuff. I had one video, I can't remember what it was. Something about our LGDs or livestock guardian dogs. Somebody, probably reported it for animal cruelty. And they were like TikTok was like, we're not going to pay you for this. And I was like, it was like a viral video too. So it must've been some, I don't know, vegan activists that was against dogs being outside. I have no idea, but I was able to appeal it though. And it got put back on there. But I've had lots of Tik Tok creator friends who will post stuff about butchering their chickens and whatever and it will be flagged and be like animal cruelty or violence or whatever. And so honestly, they're both the same as far. As that goes, but I've never had a Facebook be penalized or anything like that, but I have had some Tik TOK flags, but again, it could just be because I'm more active on Tik TOK than I am Facebook.

  Jennifer: 14:37

  So I had a page before Brunt's Roost, it was called Jen's Critters. And when I first got on Facebook and one day we were actually driving into Atlanta when this happened, and I was just, you're riding long car ride, you're scrolling your Facebook and I told David, I was like, my page won't load. And okay, and a few minutes later, I tried again, and I was like, my page won't load and I got to look and it was gone. They had just deleted it. Give me any warning or explanation or anything.

  Savannah: 15:10

  That's terrifying. That's always been my fear. Like every time I get on my phone, I'm like, what if it's gone? Cause

  Jennifer: 15:17

  they have that power. I know. And it's, and they don't tell you, it's just gone. And so I follow another person who teaches, don't rest everything on social media because it's really only 10 percent of your business if you're trying to direct people to a website.

  Savannah: 15:35

  Yeah. Social media. And that's why I tell people a lot because People always have this, and it's not a bad idea to have, but people are like, Oh, I want to get big on social media so I can not have to work and quit my job. I'm like, and I'm probably doing it all wrong. I am not one of those people that's like hustling on social media and trying to get every penny I can out of it because to me it makes it just a terrible job. I mean you, cause you have your phone with you everywhere and it is a huge blessing. It's a great privilege to have, but I'm like, you generally don't make as much as people think. And even if you do, social media could disappear tomorrow. Yes. We've been hearing about the Tik Tok ban for the last, like two years and that could happen. We could wake up one day and it's gone tomorrow. So I always tell people, try to have multiple streams of income. You can quit your job if you feel that confident, but having multiple streams of income while that, whether that's, doing like a. Patreon or doing YouTube and Facebook and Instagram, not just TikTok because it's super easy for something just to happen and it's gone. Even if the app stays, you could accidentally get locked out of your account or something.

  Jennifer: 16:46

  Yeah, true. Hackers. Yep. Yep. All right. So let's go back to chickens. So what kind of chickens did you start with? And what do you, I know that you have this whole menagerie going on out there, but what is your like

  Savannah: 17:01

  favorite? Oh, I love this question. I hate this question. So chicken math got me good and worked my way into avian algebra there. So I want to say I started with Gosh, honestly, I just went into tractor supply one day and was like, what can I get in here? And I was like, I'm just only going to get 10 so I can have enough eggs for my family. And that lasted three days before I got more. But I want to say I got I just got an assortment of pullets. That was that tractor supply. I think I was just, I want that color one and that color one. And got a little assortment. And now I have, every so many, but I would say some of my favorites are definitely Buff Orpington's. I'm so partial to them. I absolutely love their temperament. I love that they are great moms. They lay decent. So I really like Orpingtons. I really like model Duclays. I'm partial to them for a Bantam breed. I want, I used to want to say Morans, but I liked them, but if I had to pick only five, they probably wouldn't be on there just because they're very, in my experience, They don't like the heat that much here in Texas. They're always my first ones to be like, yeah, you're not getting any more eggs right now. I would say Olive Eggers or Easter Eggers. I like a good mixed breed. I like a little mutt if I throw a mutt in there for sure. So I'd probably say Easter Eggers or Olive Eggers. Just cause I can do a lot with them. Um, two more. My mind's just on blank. Yeah.

  Carey: 18:25

  I'm over here. I'm just excited. She hasn't said silky.

  Jennifer: 18:27

  I was going to say something. I was like, I got some silky hate this morning on Facebook. So

  Savannah: 18:34

  people either love them and hate them or hate them. And I'm in between. I'm like, I have them, but I'm like, your shared one brain cell kind of gets. gets old sometimes. And they're not the hardiest. If I can only pick five breeds on my homestead, silkies or satins would not be on there. Cause I'm like, you are not, you're not feeding me in the winter. You are not, the world's going to crap around me. You are not going to be feeding me or, making stew. So I'm not gonna, they're great incubators though. That's why I like to have them. Everybody's always why do you like silkies? Cause they don't lay very much. I'm like when I lose power, which happens all the time, I know I can go take my eggs and there's going to be some broody silky out there. And there you go. What's your biggest bird? My biggest bird, like chicken. Or just like bird. I would say,

  Carey: 19:24

  What kind of birds do you have other birds?

  Savannah: 19:26

  I have geese. So I was going to say my Sebas Pauls are probably my biggest bird. Those are some hefty ladies. And then my Cayugas are starting to get. Pretty chunky too. So I would say probably those are my biggest ones. As far as like chickens go, I don't have that many of the like really large fowl breeds. Like I don't have any Brahmas actually. Just because it's so hot here. I find like the bigger the bird with chickens, like they usually struggle a lot more in our really hot summers.

  Jennifer: 19:53

  Cayugas, those are the ducks that lay the black eggs, right?

  Savannah: 19:56

  Yes. Yeah. If you're lucky. Are they solid

  Jennifer: 19:59

  black or is

  Savannah: 20:00

  like the inside of the shell

  Jennifer: 20:01

  black?

  Savannah: 20:02

  So it's just the pigment that's laid on there. So if I go and I grab it right when they lay it and if I wanted to like scrabble on it or something, I could get that pigment off. Yeah. So it's just the pigment that's laid on top of it as the egg is being created. It like deposits that color as they're laying it and it's coming out. But the earlier in the laying season, they do lay darker and I have some that will lay like really dark charcoal gray, but they just started laying. And I know as they continue to lay in the season, it'll get a little bit lighter. So it's only fun for a little bit. And then you get like light gray eggs, but they do lay the really dark ones.

  Jennifer: 20:35

  Those are the eggs that you typically see the scammers put with the I am Somani.

  Savannah: 20:41

  I have so many people that's Facebook again, Facebook post a picture of the eggs and, I'll have a couple of the black how you go on is in there and everybody's always what chicken lays those black ones in the amount. of no offense to anybody, generally men, not sure why it is these older men think they know what they're talking about with am samanis, but they'll comment and they're like, oh, that's that am. And they always spell samani wrong. That's what plays the black eggs. And I'm just always no, it's not. Stop fake news.

  Jennifer: 21:11

  Going forward, what is your plans? I know you're expecting a newborn, so get put on hold. Yeah, probably a little bit. Oh, and I just a side note there. You're due on my birthday. No way. Oh, no pressure. So taking the baby out of the equation, what's your plan going forward with the birds?

  Savannah: 21:30

  So my plan is to ship eggs. Obviously I've already gotten my testing and everything. I'm just dragging my feet sitting in the paperwork. But my plan is to ship eggs. I really want to focus on a couple of the breeds that are on like the livestock conservatory list like the sebastopol, the cayugas, and focus on a few of those and just start shipping eggs. I might one day consider shipping chicks, but that is, It's a big iffy thing for me because it's just a lot of responsibility. I'm like, if, eggs get lost, meh, okay, I'll send out more. But if chicks got lost, so I'm not sure really on that, but I really want to focus on being able to ship. And then I would really like to get more self sufficient with our homestead where we are growing most of our own meat. I would love to actually be able to put something in the ground and grow it and not kill it. So I'd love to be able to grow most of our own fruit and vegetables and. All of that kind of stuff. So we're just working towards being more self sufficient and growing a lot of our own food as well as being able to have the homestead support itself. Self a little bit more, not from my social media, but from the actual, animals itself. And so that's our goal going forward.

  Jennifer: 22:42

  That's a good goal. Me and Carrie are both on board with eating our chickens.

  Savannah: 22:46

  Yeah. Yeah. Source

  Jennifer: 22:48

  of income in a way.

  Savannah: 22:50

  Yes. Oh yeah, for sure. It's money you're saving. So that's something we're really hoping to do. You've got the two

  Jennifer: 22:56

  goats too. Are they just there or do they serve a purpose?

  Savannah: 23:00

  I'm hoping to be able to breed. I was going to breed them actually this year. So I would be able to have. them kidding in the spring, but I realized I don't want to have a newborn and be having to milk goats in the morning. So we're going to wait on that, but we are planning on breeding them so we can do goat's milk maybe make goat's milk soap. Because again, I always think like focusing on things that you're able to ship is great, especially when you're doing like social media and you have people that want to support you and you want to be able to ship things, finding those things you can actually ship can be difficult because a lot of consumables, you run into a lot laws and regulations. And so I'm looking at maybe doing goat smoke soap and then selling the babies locally, the goat babies. Yes. Yep. Yeah, not, we're going to clarify that. Not my babies. I don't think anybody would want them. They're

  Jennifer: 23:49

  feral. All right, and then you have another project that you working on. It's getting released here in a couple of weeks. Tell us about that.

  Savannah: 23:58

  So I don't like to call myself an author because that puts a lot of pressure on the the old books, but I have written two novels. I went ahead and published my first one a year and a half ago, I think. And then my second one I'm getting ready to release within the next two weeks. And those are just, Kind of my hobby. Again, I'm really bad with monetizing things to its potential. I, because for me, I'm an all or nothing type of person. So if I'm going to do that, it's going to end up feeling like a job for me. And I don't, I'm not really good at advertising stuff, which is really funny because people are like, Oh yes, you are. I'm like, no, it just happens. Like I just yap a lot. Like I'm not good at actually meaningfully You know, advertising, but I do have a novel that will be published within the next week or two. And those are just historical fictions. And again, the ADHD, I just am always thinking about stories and I'm a huge reader. And so I was like, I'm going to go ahead and write some books and just see what happens. And it's been really good. And I plan one day to make a poultry book. I have so many people who want me to write a chicken book and I keep dragging my feet because I'm like, There's so many other people out there that one have already made it. But at this point there's a million people who do chickens on Tik Tok. So yeah, but I'm like, people are just so much smarter than I am. I'm like, I am not, I'm like, I am not the poultry expert. Cause I always tell people, I'm like, I'm not a professional. I'm just a crazy chicken lady who has a bunch of chickens and has been just really hyper focused on it for the last three years. But I'm not a professional. I don't ever want to give up that vibe. But. So many people are like, I want a book that I can read. That's like you explain it to me in a way that I will be able to understand, dumb it down. And I'm like that I can do, I can make it work for the ADHD brain where you don't want all this scientific information necessarily, because a lot of people do offer, which is great. very scientific explanations for everything and very professional sounding. Meanwhile, I'm over here I say rooster or roo, and a lot of people are like, it's a cock roll or, whatever. And I'm like, yeah, you know what I mean?

  Carey: 26:03

  Yeah.

  Savannah: 26:04

  Cock a doodle doo. There's your rooster. So that's, I'm like, I might write like a hot mess homestead guide for chickens or something like that in the future where. There's no pressure on me to be real professional because that's just not going to happen.

  Jennifer: 26:17

  All

  Savannah: 26:17

  right. So what's the name of your new book? The name of my new book is Lovely Shame. And where could people find that? They can find that on Amazon if you want a paperback. And then it's also on Kindle and it's on Kindle Unlimited as well. So before Thanksgiving? Yes, hopefully that's the plan. I'm like, I always am scared to give a date because again, you never know what's going to happen, but it should be definitely before Thanksgiving. Awesome.

  Jennifer: 26:44

  And if they lost my voice and if they wanted to find you, that would be the hotness homestead on Tik Tok, Facebook, anything else?

  Savannah: 26:53

  Technically on YouTube and Instagram. It's just a matter of will I ever post on there, but I am on all the platforms.

  Carey: 27:00

  Nice.

  Jennifer: 27:02

  Kerry, you got any questions for Savannah?

  Carey: 27:05

  I don't really have any questions. I feel like I know her really well because I am one of those 325, 000 followers. I've watched quite possibly every one of her videos at least once. When you first told me about her, I was like, That name sounds familiar. Who is this person? And then she said, the green headed chicken lady on TikTok. I said, I know who that is. So yeah, I already feel connected because I've watched all your videos and they are hilarious. And I personally like that. It's normal stuff. Like you're normalizing the craziness that happens on a homestead. And I understand why you have so many views because people want to see, they want to see real, There's reality TV that's about as fake as it gets and people are get on tick tock and stuff because they want to see real. So yes, it works and I love it.

  Savannah: 28:02

  I appreciate it. It's been a huge blessing for me. And I, it just makes my day every single time that somebody is I just want to let you know that I relate so much to your videos or I feel a lot less alone. I feel like such a mess. And not in a mean way, but I look at you and I feel less like a mess, but it's no, I don't ever want people to watch my videos and be like, ma'am, she has her life together. And I just feel so bad about myself now. I'm like, no, we all have. Coops that need to be cleaned and the water is never ending. And we may forget to go pick up, a bag of shavings and have to go haul butt before they close and be that person. And like most people don't have their life altogether. And I feel like the more we can be honest with other people about not pretending we have it all together, people will feel just so much less alone and probably do a lot better.

  Jennifer: 28:48

  The one series, or I don't really know how many videos about it. You made. But was your black pants that people were losing their minds over you wearing those black pants out.

  Savannah: 28:59

  My fancy clothes and the chicken coop. Oh yes. I was like, these are literally 7 black pants I got from Walmart through my PJ pants. But because I had, I guess a nicer top on and I had some hoop earrings on. My hair was in the messy bun I'd worn the day before and everybody was like, who does their hair? I'm like thank you. But no, this is literally a messy bun. People just, oh, and the comments I get on my eyelashes, cause I have eyelash extensions. Everybody's no farmer wears that much makeup or has glues on eyelash extensions. And I'm like, okay.

  Carey: 29:33

  There's nothing wrong with wanting to look good.

  Savannah: 29:35

  Yeah. I'm like, I literally leave my house. I was for a while and we're a lot busier now, but back then I was like, I leave my house once a week. I went to tractor supply. So I'll put on some little hoop earrings. I went and got all my pine pellets and I recorded myself putting the pine pellets. But I changed into my PJ pants cause I don't want anything with buttons if I don't have to. And Oh, Facebook. Cause again, Facebook was in an uproar about it. Just, Oh, this is the most fake stuff I've ever seen. And I'm like, so of course I, Was super sarcastic and made my follow up video where I actually put on my nice high heels, my one pair of heels I have and my fancy dress and actually did my hair. And I was like, look, this is being done up to do chores. Let me show you what it would actually look like. It cracked me up. So thank you for that. It was an interesting time. That's for sure. Yep.

  Jennifer: 30:29

  All right. Anything else you would like to add before we

  Savannah: 30:33

  say goodbye for today? I don't think so. I would just say, cause I know the biggest thing that a lot of people want to take away from it is like social media and all that kind of stuff. And my biggest thing is to not compare yourself to other people. people on the internet. I know that sounds so cheesy, but it is super hard to do when you're trying to start, especially looking at other people, trying to see what kind of hashtags they're using, whatever it is. Like I'm always tell people, I'm like, post what you like and let it just take off from there and just post your real life. And people will start to, Relate to you and they will, it'll organically happen. Even if it slowly happens, it doesn't happen overnight. Not everybody goes viral. That's okay. But I'm like, just don't compare yourself and just start off having fun with it. Don't immediately run with it like it's a job and hopefully it will take off.

  Jennifer: 31:27

  You've done well and they all enjoy it.

  Savannah: 31:30

  Thank you. I appreciate it.

  Carey: 31:32

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

  32:00

  Mhm.

Decoding the Secrets of Eggshell Variations

Ever wonder why all the variations in eggshell quality? From soft shells to bumpy shells, we have you covered.

Eggshell Quality

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  All right, poultry pals. Today on this episode, we're going to do a little, some a little different. We are going to talk about eggshells and a lot of the science y type stuff behind those and what makes changes and things like that. But we get a lot of questions here lately about what's the poultry nerds got going on. Cause Jennifer, especially, I got to give her kudos because she has become a website dang near expert.

  Jennifer: 0:31

  Oh no.

  Carey: 0:32

  There's been, we use Squarespace for our website. It's poultrynerdspodcast. com. Want you to check it out, join our mailing list because we've got a lot of exciting things coming up and there's your opportunity to get on the mailing list and we'll send out Stuff to let you know. Now, we promise we're not going to spam you and we're not going to sell your email address to somebody in India where you'll get a million emails a day. We're not doing that. But Jennifer, since that, to me, that is your baby. Do you want to walk us through? What all's on PoultryNerdsPodcast. com?

  Jennifer: 1:14

  I think fluid would be a good term using for it. I see a need and I don't see an outlet. And I think, you know what, we can do that. Why not? So I created an old school classified section. Now this is going to date me like my age and stuff, but back when we got newspapers, you need to read the classifieds and find what you were looking for. There wasn't links you could touch. You actually had to read the post and see if you wanted to call the phone number or whatever. There's actually a lot of people out there that don't have fancy websites. They don't have. They don't have crazy websites either. They don't have Facebook farm pages. They may not even be on social media and they need to find a breed or a breeder or a blog or just whatever. They're looking for something, cages, something they're looking for. And I thought, you know what? We could do classified section. And so we built, I built one into the website and it's free for anybody to come on there and look at it. But we are asking you to pay a small fee just for my time and the cost of the website to, to add it on there. Just a little small fee and right now that little small fee is 50 percent off just to start loading it up. But we have a desire, we have it divided up into quail, chickens, turkeys, waterfowl, and other. And then we can divide it even more if we need to. I was thinking people might want guineas on there. Those loud suckers. People look for them in the spring.

  Carey: 2:59

  Oh, guineas? Guineas.

  Jennifer: 3:02

  People love, it's a love hate relationship with guineas.

  Carey: 3:06

  So I think that with that, that's not chickens. And that's, I don't know, guineas, guineas may need their own.

  Jennifer: 3:15

  Yeah, we'll put them on their own little page because they might be so loud on the other pages.

  Carey: 3:20

  Like they're loud everywhere.

  Jennifer: 3:22

  Yeah.

  Carey: 3:22

  The whole thought behind this is, On Facebook, there's tons of people out there scamming folks, and we're gonna on these classifies before we post anything, we're going to check these people out and make sure that they are actual people, that they really do sell products. Um, we're going to try to prevent as much of that as possible. Nothing's a hundred percent. But when Jennifer and I talked about this. I got the newspaper slash Craigslist vibe and yeah, like I started putting together on my farm website a lot of files and stuff. And we may want to look at doing that here because There's a lot of people that are like homesteaders or poultry keepers or whatever you want to call what category. They don't do social media. My life would might actually have a little less stress in it if I didn't do social media. So I get it. And this way, people can come here and check that out because we hit a milestone today and I'll go ahead and say November the 20th. Boom. That's when we're recording this. We hit a milestone 9, 500 listener or downloads for the podcast. So to me, that's pretty huge. We back in January, we were like, Hey, we're going to get together and talk about birds and if people listen, they listen, fast forward, 10, 11 months, and here we are 46 countries. People are downloading our podcasts over 9, 500 times. So yeah, we figured let's put together a webpage and make it more of a source for people to get to and. something.

  Jennifer: 5:27

  And if there's you find a need for that And let us know. And if we can make it happen we will do it. But we have some other big stuff coming down the pipeline. We have some big podcasts coming. We have some events coming. 2025 is shaping up to be a big year.

  Carey: 5:48

  Can we talk about?

  Jennifer: 5:49

  No. Can we talk about next week? Yeah.

  Carey: 5:53

  Okay.

  Jennifer: 5:54

  You guys, I

  Carey: 5:55

  will say this Thursday, next Thursday. We have, probably one of the best one, best episodes in my opinion out there.

  Jennifer: 6:08

  It's going to be a mess. It

  Carey: 6:10

  was very fun. It was very fun.

  Jennifer: 6:12

  And it's our Thanksgiving present to you guys.

  Carey: 6:15

  There you go. And there's a big announcement on there too. The ads, so people that do the classified ads, they won't be clickable. When you send us your information, it'll be what it is. And people will be responsible for going to your site or giving you a call or whatever. That's another layer of protection to help. The end user to know that they're dealing with a real person when they hit that button and hit that person.

  Jennifer: 6:48

  Yeah, we wanted to be fair for people who didn't have websites or didn't have social media. Plus make it a little bit easier for me. We're getting close to breeding season and my time will be really limited. So I do the website part of it and Kerry does the technical podcast side of it. And so we want to make sure that everything was fair across the board. So each ad will have contact information and then it'll just be up to you to contact the person, just like it used to be in the newspaper.

  Carey: 7:17

  Ma'am.

  Jennifer: 7:18

  Yep. But go to the website, poultry nurse.com or poultry nurse podcast.com, same thing. And on the classifieds is up in the navigation and there's an ad section in each section of quail chicken, turkeys, whatever. And it explains everything that you need to know. You actually can click on that one and it'll give you more details. But right now an ad is$2 and 50 cents to place one.

  Carey: 7:46

  And that stays up for a month.

  Jennifer: 7:48

  Yep. So breeding season is coming. So go ahead and get your ad on there and let's get our community rolling.

  Carey: 7:58

  So today we're going to talk about eggshells.

  Jennifer: 8:02

  Oh yeah, we see that question a lot on social media.

  Carey: 8:05

  People talk about their, my eggshell looks like it doesn't have a shell. It's just It's rubbery. What causes that?

  Jennifer: 8:16

  Or crinkly?

  Carey: 8:17

  Crinkly. Yup.

  Jennifer: 8:18

  Blood.

  Carey: 8:19

  That's got blood on it.

  Jennifer: 8:21

  Bumpy.

  Carey: 8:22

  Bumpy. You know all kinds of stuff

  Jennifer: 8:26

  misshapen yeah, not in the nest box underneath the roost bar So I have to just say this scary and I haven't told you this yet So I went down a huge rabbit hole and ended up on some government papers and stuff about eggshells science papers and Anyway, it took I don't know. It was like hours and i'm like, oh my eyes are crossing about these eggshells and I was in the, I guess the commercial side of it. And those people that are running commercial land houses, they've really dialed it in because they're maximizing their profit. And it, when I realized that it's the pages that I was on, I was like, that's not really what we're doing. But if they've really dialed it in, then they're going to have some really good information.

  Carey: 9:17

  I was going to say, some of these people are popping out a million plus eggs a year. So if they've got it down to a science, then you know the person that's selling a couple of dozen here and there off their farm could benefit from that.

  Jennifer: 9:34

  Yeah, now both you and I both raise standard bred because we both show and those birds are not known for their egg laying abilities.

  Carey: 9:46

  Yeah somebody said, you have really nice Rhode Island reds. I want to get one of your birds and put it over mine. And that, Rhode Island reds lay really well. I'm like, I have standard Rhode Island reds. You're looking for production Rhode Island reds. There's a huge difference.

  Jennifer: 10:05

  Yes, huge difference. And so that actually got me thinking that I would have to go out on a limb here and just say majority of the people who have chickens in their backyard have production breeds, whether they realize it or not, they've gone to the hatchery or they've gone to tractor supplier, wherever, and they've picked up birds and those are going to be production breeds, which are meant for laying eggs, Consistently, early, all of that good stuff. Now, there's a reason for those. I think they're great. Everybody needs eggs. I haven't had an egg in a month. I envy the people with the production breach right now. Yeah. We're eating quail eggs. It takes a lot of quail eggs to make an omelet. Yes, but anyway, so while I was reading one of the papers and it was talking about in the laying houses, they only get 54 weeks. Out of those production birch. Yep. Of laying. And I was shocked. You say 54. That sounds like a lot, but that's really just a year. And when you go to Trash Your Supply in February, and you buy a chick, and it starts laying four months later, so you're at what, June? 54 months is the next July. 54 weeks is the next July. Okay.

  Carey: 11:38

  Yeah, so I actually have a friend that has a house up in Arkansas and they use the high lines for that and they will bring those birds in. At Pointe a Laye, 56 weeks later, they sell those birds for little or nothing to people because that's their peak. They're doing an egg a day minimum for that 56 weeks. And then after that, when the birds in their eyes are spent, then they'll sell them off to people. Who will come get thousands of them at a time and then take them and sell them again for, eight, 10 a piece. And at that point you're going to get a bird that lays, five eggs a week, but they're losing money if it's only laying five eggs a week.

  Jennifer: 12:35

  So in that paper, it was trying to come up with the nutrition profile to try to prolong it out to a hundred weeks. And they were. successful at pushing the bird to a hundred weeks, but it wasn't becoming cost effective because they were having to alter the nutrition for the older birds. They were getting a lot more eggs that they couldn't grade and sell to the open public. So eggs have to go elsewhere. I think, just based on what I was reading, if you've got a production breed and you're getting, 2 or 3 years out of them, I think you're doing really well. Oh, yeah. You're not got that nutrition dialed in like they do your, you're not running them as hard.

  Carey: 13:28

  Yeah, they're pushing them birds hard, like an athlete.

  Jennifer: 13:31

  Yeah. They're, they haven't molted. I doubt very seriously. They let them molt because they're not going to want to feed them through a mold.

  Carey: 13:40

  No, even feeding them right. You're still looking at two to three weeks

  Jennifer: 13:46

  and

  Carey: 13:47

  two to three weeks times thousands of birds. That's a lot of loss.

  Jennifer: 13:53

  Some of them had 80, 000 birds in some of the articles I was reading. It's a lot. So before we get into the eggshell quality, I just, I thought I would bring that up to, to set your expectations. If you have the standard bred birds, like we have our expectations of egg laying is pretty much. March to July, because they're big birds and that's what they're bred for. If you have production birds, then, they may live for 10 years, but they may not lay eggs that whole time. I have some hatchery orpingtons out there that are 10 ish years old now. There's two of them. One of them still lays and goes broody about every five or six minutes or so till the dog comes and finds her eggs and takes them. Yeah. Yeah. So I just wanted to first of all, you need to set expectations. For what you have and what you expect out of those chickens as far as laying is concerned. Now that we've said that, we can actually get into the egg shell quality. So I think the biggest thing that we hear is the softshell egg. And everybody wants to throw oyster shell and calcium and all that good stuff at that bird. And that poor bird's probably swimming and milking.

  Carey: 15:15

  There's so much stuff and, I know we laugh about it from time to time and you've been banned a couple of times from the BYC. We'll call it the BYC group

  Jennifer: 15:27

  and banned for life.

  Carey: 15:29

  I've gotten a couple of seven days. And I've had to learn to keep my mouth shut because people want to feel good. They don't want to hear like any kind of science about stuff. And we want to tell you guys the truth.

  Jennifer: 15:43

  Yeah.

  Carey: 15:44

  So what, tell me this, why, according to science is a chicken's egg? It looks like it's in a plastic bag with no actual shell around it. What's the cause of that?

  Jennifer: 16:01

  It could be lack of calcium. It could be a new layer. It could be a stressed layer, a hot layer, an old layer, one that got scared, one that's got an underlying disease. There's a. ton of reasons that was given why you would get a soft shell egg. I, I have a theory. This is not backed up by anything that I read, but this is what I do with my quail. So you as the nutrition officiant can say, no, Jennifer, you're crazy. This is my theory. So people who are new to chickens, they go to the store, they pick up the little chicks. And they are told to feed a chick starter and at 16 weeks, they move it to layer. I think that is a very poor. Train of thought, I personally think that you should leave them on developer for a long time. Developer, I call it developer. The bag that it comes in is called developer. I think it's grower starter.

  Carey: 17:10

  You got like most companies have starter grower. Developer, layer, conditioner, and some throw out, offlock.

  Jennifer: 17:25

  Offlock. My birds hate offlock. The ducks like it.

  Carey: 17:28

  Yeah, that's because it's got a lot of niacin in it, and they love that.

  Jennifer: 17:32

  So I'm going to talk about quail here because this is going to be the most parallel to the same production breed here. Cause I, my quail would be like a production quail because I run them hard in cages for eggs, right? So when they start laying. Which would be the equivalent of a chicken laying at 16 weeks, a hatchery quality chicken laying at 16 weeks. Yeah I continue feeding them starter for 2 more weeks. I wait until that egg is full size. consistent shape and that bird is done growing. So that puts them at for quail, that would be like 10 to 12 weeks. So if you were doing a production chicken, that's probably going to be more like 24 weeks.

  Carey: 18:22

  I was going to say anywhere from 20 to 24. So like with that, what you're doing, you feed off the shelf bag feed to your birds.

  Jennifer: 18:32

  Yeah, I do.

  Carey: 18:33

  Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But the reason why that you do that, and it's very smart that you do, is because those birds, when they start laying, yeah, they need a little bit of extra calcium, but they really need the amino acids and all that stuff, where you typically have a higher percentage in. Your starter and your developer, the a lot of companies, though, the way they keep their feed price consistent or cheap is when they have to toss in some more calcium, they take other stuff out and the amino acids is what makes the feed expensive, not. the actual food. So by giving them starter for an extra couple of weeks or a developer for an extra couple of weeks, you're just making sure they have the amino acids that their bodies really need. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's some people, will religiously be like, Oh, 16 weeks on a chicken, eight weeks. It's time to go for layer. They will not lay until their own layer. That's not true. You do not want to swap over to a layer feed until you see eggs. Once they start and not just one. Like she waits two weeks. Boom. That's it. That, that's her rule. That's because you want to wait until they start laying consistently. And they're not going to do it the first few days. With a quail, it'll take two weeks. With a chicken, it may take four. So once they start laying consistency consistently, that's when they need that. That's when they need the extra calcium.

  Jennifer: 20:25

  And they also need to finish growing. They need to finish that pelvic bone width. The structure needs to be finished in order to handle the egg size passing through. Okay, so now we've got you set up with expectations on what you've chosen to raise in your backyard. Now, you're going to feed them developer longer, and it would be better to err on starter, grower, developer, whatever you want to call it, longer than shorter. You can't really go too long on it. On my birds the chickens, they'll stay on developer for 12, 14 months before I put them on layer.

  Carey: 21:10

  I'll say this. I have one pin out of now, I hope to 20.

  Jennifer: 21:17

  What was that? Say it again. I

  Carey: 21:18

  had to sneeze. One pin that gets layer feed and that's because the birds in there, their primary purpose is to feed my family of 10 with eggs and friends and family to get some others, whatever. Those birds get layer. None of my other birds get a layer. They stay on. A developer type grower ration. Now two things I have in every single one of my 20 pens is a grit, limestone, gray, white colored rock that's appropriate to the size of the bird that's in there. And I do have calcium carbonate, AKA egg shells. I have that in a feed cup. And every one of them. And normally when I do my chicken chores weekly, I top those off. I have a small scoop that I typically use for my chickens. And because I'm lazy. And sometimes I think turkeys make a meal off of rocks. I use a large feed scoop to refill theirs up because, yeah, I don't know, turkeys eat a lot. They eat a lot, but they also eat a lot of grit. But that's what I do because that way, I know they're getting the nutrition and all of that stuff and with all the birds that my primary function for that bird is to grow it correctly according to standard. I'm not concerned if it's laying me eggs every day. I let it pick the calcium when it needs it because I'm more concerned about it having the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.

  Jennifer: 23:24

  Okay, so now that we have laid out like the foundation here, let me ask you something. How often do you get a softshell egg?

  Carey: 23:34

  It's been a while.

  Jennifer: 23:35

  Me too.

  Carey: 23:36

  Now I'll say this, there's times When I go out of town and I come back, and if I've been gone longer than a couple of days, depending on how long or what time of year it is and how hot it is, if nobody has collected eggs for me, then I'm not taking those eggs in the house. I will chunk them off in the woods and let other animals eat them. And I can literally take my eggs and throw them. And they will skip across the field two to three times before they bust.

  Jennifer: 24:13

  Yeah, me too. So I do get, I do have some older layers that lay with bumps, some calcium deposits.

  Carey: 24:23

  That's going to happen.

  Jennifer: 24:24

  Yeah. And then the turkeys, they have calcium deposits on their eggs. But what I wanted to, we kind of digress there for a second. So what I wanted to point out here was if you build The bird and don't try to rush the laying part of it. I know everybody's excited about the eggs because I'm going to tell you after, I don't even know how many years we are still excited about that first egg too. When out of that special bird or, the first basket full in the spring we, that excitement does not go anywhere. Or that, that really beautiful blue egg. We love those. So we understand that we're not trying to squish that we're just, you want the bird to be healthy. You want the bird to have the structure to pass those eggs correctly and live a long life. If it doesn't have structure, it could prolapse. It could become egg bound. You could have a lot of problems that way. So take the extra couple, three weeks, four weeks, whatever it takes, just leave them on the developer. When that bird's ready to lay, it's going to lay. It doesn't matter what food it's on. But you want to make sure that the. structure is being finished. Okay, so now we've got all that and if you still have a problem, such as soft shell eggs, the papers that I read said that your vitamin D3 and your calcium ratios were off. Because you need vitamin D in order to absorb calcium.

  Carey: 26:02

  It doesn't matter how much calcium you're giving them. If they don't have enough D3, their body will not use it.

  Jennifer: 26:08

  And then also potassium. Potassium was in there too. You can't use calcium either with the potassium. I don't understand all of that, but it said that all of those ratios had to be Exactly. So that's going to go to your feed quality. And don't just throw more mealworms at them. That's not going to fix it. Okay. So then we're going to talk about pimpled or rough eggs with the extra calcium on the outside of them. Now, Some birds like turkeys. Those are, that's just a Turkey egg. That's just how they come out. So don't be concerned with the calcium bumps on a Turkey egg. And occasionally those two old hens that I have laying around out there they lay calcium bumpy eggs. And that's going to be because of their age. Okay. So back to the beginning. What kind of chicken did you get? Did you get a production breed? What do you have? And then set your expectations. So if you're getting these bumpy eggs, is that coming from your 10 year old hen? If she's a 10 year old hen, as far as I'm concerned, she can lay whatever she wants to if she still wants

  Carey: 27:28

  to. I was gonna say, at 10 years, she earned her spot, you

  Jennifer: 27:32

  know what I use her eggs for? You could use them

  Carey: 27:35

  for anything, really.

  Jennifer: 27:36

  Nope, I give those eggs every morning to my chicks. Raw. to build up their immune system because those birds free range the entire farm and they've got 10 years of antibodies. Oh

  Carey: 27:49

  yeah, that's right.

  Jennifer: 27:50

  Yeah.

  Carey: 27:51

  That's how you get chick vigor.

  Jennifer: 27:53

  Yep, it is. So that's what I use those eggs for. We don't eat them. Those are all go back to the chicks. Okay, but the paper said that new castles and bronchitis can also cause Calcium deposits on your eggs.

  Carey: 28:10

  That's true.

  Jennifer: 28:11

  Though I think Newcastle's is more of like a western United States issue. We don't really have it over here too much.

  Carey: 28:17

  No.

  Jennifer: 28:19

  And then infectious bronchitis. I have personally never seen it. So you'll have to look that up if you didn't see if that's something you think you might have in your flock, maybe. Okay. Bloodstained eggs. I've seen that a lot on Facebook.

  Carey: 28:36

  Look, you go into that group we talked about earlier, people are like, oh my God, my poor chicken's going to die. Look at how it must be in so much pain. It may be the

  Jennifer: 28:49

  structure.

  Carey: 28:50

  It may be. But if got it and start laying eggs at 14, 15 weeks, instead of waiting until it fully developed, could be your fault.

  Jennifer: 28:59

  Technically, all that really happened was a broken blood vessel and an eggshell. That's technically all that really happened.

  Carey: 29:07

  Now that could be because you have some cannibalism going on. Because your feed ration ain't what it should be. You could have your ratios maybe off. You could have overcrowding. Because I have actually heard of cases where birds would, like there would be a rooster that was rough and he would peck at the vent. And he was rough on the birds. And one day somebody went out and the rooster was dead. The hen, the hens literally ganged up on it.

  Jennifer: 29:45

  That's where chicken math is going to get ahold of you. So if you get a coop that they say is built for eight to 10, that's really probably only six to seven. Make sure you don't overcrowd. So the bloodstain, that's could be young layer. Could be underdeveloped. It can be

  Carey: 30:03

  a lot.

  Jennifer: 30:04

  Yeah. If you're feeding too much protein, the eggs can be too large. So I was on another group the other day, another one of those large groups that I wasn't kicked out of yet. And she argued with me, but she was feeding hers a layer feed with black soldier fly. So and cut up pig livers. And I said, I know I hadn't heard that one before. That was a new one. And I said, that is way too much protein. And of course they all jumped on me and said, no, that's not true.

  Carey: 30:35

  If you're feeding, if you're buying that 15 bag of feed and you're mixing that stuff in with it, then yeah. But that's I saw one person That swore by feeding game bird lair, that's 24 to 26 percent usually to chickens

  Jennifer: 30:53

  too much.

  Carey: 30:54

  And I'm like, you're cooking that bird.

  Jennifer: 30:57

  Yeah, so you get those too big of an egg. If you're getting double yokers, triple yokers often, then, every once in a while something may happen, but if you're getting them consistently, then your protein is way too high.

  Carey: 31:11

  I was going to say double yokers, there's two things that cause double yokers consistently. Number one, really high protein. Number two genetics.

  Jennifer: 31:25

  Yeah, I have to be really careful with the quail on the double yokers. So yeah that's a thing there. Okay. Wrinkled eggs if you've never seen a wrinkled egg, they're cool actually crepe paper. Like maybe it came out wet and it had to dry, out in the air and it just wrinkled. Until you see. That's the only

  Carey: 31:45

  way to describe it is

  Jennifer: 31:47

  wrinkled. And when you see one, you'll be like, that's what they were talking about. But it's stressed. Infectious bronchitis again, defective shell gland or overcrowding. Yep. So stress is going to be like you moved it. Maybe you bought a new bird and brought them in. You added new birds. It could be something you don't even realize is going on. You might have an owl or a hawk or something perching on your run and terrorizing your birds, a neighbor's dog while you're gone. Rats. Rats on the roost. And I promise you, and don't turn us off when I say this, but I'm gonna upset some people. If you have birds You have rodents, whether you know it or not, they're out there.

  Carey: 32:39

  Yeah, I actually have found of my game roosters, he's in a pen with two hens and they're, they just hatched some chicks out. and I found a rather large sized rat dead in the pen and its belly was full. So I feel Tyrell is the name that the kids gave this particular bird. He watched and I'm guessing he got a little too close to the chicks and he did what he did. Yeah, if you have birds. Even if they're all inside of your barn, you have rats inside your barn.

  Jennifer: 33:24

  You just don't know it yet.

  Carey: 33:25

  Yeah, you just don't know

  Jennifer: 33:26

  it. If you have snakes, then you have rodents. Because the snakes are looking for food. And they're going to come where there's food for them. I found rats in my turkey pen. And how I found them was they were eating the tail feathers. They were running up underneath of them on the roost and eating the tail feathers, chewing them off. So yeah, that's crazy. Yep. So you just kinda, you have to be very observant and you don't always, don't set your expectations. It might be something that you were not expecting. I never would have dreamed the rats be eating my turkey feather tails.

  Carey: 34:09

  No, but they will.

  Jennifer: 34:10

  Yep, they sure will.

  Carey: 34:12

  They will also make eggs disappear.

  Jennifer: 34:16

  They do, or they'll take a bite out of them. Okay. So what are some other things that we have seen on we have this big graphic right here that we're looking at and I'm going to add it to the website with the podcast link. So you guys can read it. It's also on the. Poultry Breeder Nutrition Facebook group. It's up in the files is where I found it because that's where Keri stuffed it. You can find it there. What else is on here that people see?

  Carey: 34:47

  The different bands, a lot of times people say My egg looks like it's got bands on it. Like the old, like tie dye shirts, how they had the different circles around. The main thing that causes that is stress. And if you'll look at a lot of these this particular document is 20 common eggshell quality problems. Almost all of them, stress is one of the causes. And people, sometimes when I'm doing a visit at a farm, they're like this is what my eggs look like. Why? And I'm like your birds are stressed out. And they're like, how do you know? Let's look at them and the birds, they'll look stressed out. And this one particular one was a pretty large farm with no LGD and they had a donkey. And I'm like, dude, you need to get the donkey with the birds because you've got coyotes. Cause, cause I knew where we were and I knew that there were coyotes in the area. And he said, so donkeys, and you put chickens with donkeys. I said, man, that's the reason why a lot of chicken people have a donkey is, maybe their things don't work out with their LGD or whatever. But you get, if you have coyotes, you need a donkey, whether you have chickens, whether you have goats, even cows. My son he has on one of his farms, this doesn't have a house. It's just about 130 acres is fenced in. And he had actually had two calves that he had lost to coyotes. Gets him a donkey and he's found dead coyotes in his pasture.

  Jennifer: 36:35

  Don't mix donkeys and dogs. I haven't done it. Don't have firsthand knowledge, but I understand that it's not a good mix.

  Carey: 36:44

  No, because the donkey will think that the dog is something that shouldn't be there.

  Jennifer: 36:49

  I want a donkey so bad. We're getting off track, but I want a donkey so bad, but we have four LGDs out there now, so I can't. Your

  Carey: 36:56

  LGDs are bigger, your big, your LGDs. There's one or two of them that can get up on a donkey's back and take it down.

  Jennifer: 37:05

  Oh, yeah, easy.

  Carey: 37:06

  And that's probably what would happen. They're doing their job, though.

  Jennifer: 37:10

  So those white banded eggs that you were talking about, stress, or the change in lighting, which I find interesting. So if you just flip the lights on them, so they're gonna lay some weird eggs. The misshapen eggs is right next to it. Now I used the, I moved the breasts down to the barn a couple of days ago and let the, them up for 14 hours and went out there today to get see if she had laid me any eggs yet and sure enough there's one out there it looks like a torpedo. So it's working. It's got to work its way out.

  Carey: 37:40

  And, but if you look at one of the reasons why you have those torpedo eggs stress, why don't you took them out of their home, put them in a new home.

  Jennifer: 37:49

  I did.

  Carey: 37:50

  So

  Jennifer: 37:51

  they got to get up at three in the morning. Now,

  Carey: 37:54

  It is what it is. Another thing when we were talking about the bloodstain eggs is overweight. If your birds are too big, that's one of the reasons why molting is so important. And changing what you feed them when they molt. Because the whole, the purpose behind the molt is very important. Number one, it's designed for them to lose weight. And it's designed for them to lose those feathers so the new ones can grow in. But the birds, when they go through the molt and they get down to about that pullet weight, the way they were when they were younger, on the hens, that sets them up to start laying a whole lot again and gets them going. On the male birds, That this is a PG show, so I'm going to say that makes everything else work that slims them down and gives them the energy to do everything else that they need to do, and it will make your it'll make your fertility higher. After the moult when they're on a good moult ration and then you start feeding them really well after that. So that's important too.

  Jennifer: 39:05

  So it's like us losing our winter weight. Yeah, I want to do that one day. I want to moult.

  Carey: 39:14

  I lose my winter weight every year. Then, Thanksgiving's right around the corner. So it's fixing to start coming back.

  Jennifer: 39:21

  Yep, exactly.

  Carey: 39:22

  But I convince myself if I keep that cycle going, then I'll stay about what I am.

  Jennifer: 39:28

  Good for you. Let's not talk about that anymore. Okay, so I think that's pretty much all of the ones that we see on on Facebook, but there's a lot more on here. So once I get this up on the website check it out. Yeah, you can check it out. It was printed. We wanna give credit to altech.com is who made up the graphic that we're looking at. And they put down here at the bottom that they got a lot of the credit from the University of New England and Australia. So I make sure that people know that's where we got our information. But yeah, so I think that we're good on the eggshells today.

  Carey: 40:05

  All right. Thanks everybody. Y'all have a good one.

  Jennifer: 40:08

  Bye.

Thank you to AllTech for this poster!

Poultry Nerds talking Sportsmanship with Jodi Chicken

Kids showing chickens is a ton of fun to watch and help with. Jodi Frye is a judge and she walks us through showmanship and what the kids needs to know before hand and what to expect. This a must listen for all the kids 0-18 who want to show chickens and do well!

Showmanship with Jodi

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Kerry Blackman, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.

  Jennifer: 0:24

  We're here today with Jodi Frye from, Tennessee welcome Jodi. So tell us about your credentials. So you're not actually a judge yet. So explain to our listeners what the difference is and what the process is.

  Jodi: 0:43

  So there's two major organizations in North America that govern what kind of, what breeds and varieties of poultry we they accept or recognize as a standardized breed and what rules they put in place for how those shows should be handled and how those birds should be judged. Each organization has separate rules on how they certify their judges and programs for how they go through that process to get certified. The APA and the ABA generally work hand in hand with each other so that if someone's certified in one, it's pretty easy to gain your second certification in the other. I decided to start with the ABA because it seems easier to get your ABA license first, wait two years, and then take the APA exam to become an APA judge as well. So with the ABA, I have to clerk eight times under eight different judges. And then I have to judge two junior shows. Where I'm judging, but there's a certified judge of at least five years working with me, who is watching all the decisions and the choices I make, making sure I'm doing everything correctly and with process. Then there is a floor test and a written test. And those are both typically done at a show where one of the people from the ABA judges committee is present.

  Jennifer: 2:05

  So does the ABA expect you to have everything memorized on every single breed? Or do you get to keep the book with you as a cheat sheet?

  Jodi: 2:16

  Yes and no. They expect you to know the standard in general. But It's not frowned upon to keep a standard with you as a reference. Now, for the floor test, I won't be able to keep a standard with me. That will be a test of whatever knowledge I'm working with. But most judges do keep a standard on hand or nearby to reference when needed. You'll see many judges with decades of experience that still keep a pocket edition. And they're judging jacket. They keep it on hand.

  Jennifer: 2:47

  Oh, good for them.

  Carey: 2:49

  Whoa, wait, there's a cheat sheet pocket edition? Yes,

  Jodi: 2:53

  there is. There, there's been a pocket edition of the ABA standard available for a while. I really need to get one of the recent edition, but there is a new ABA standard coming. About next year for their anniversary edition. So if you want to get your own copy of the ABA standard, the current edition is available to buy online. If you want an APA standard, that is actually currently not available. Because they have released at Ohio national last year has now been recalled and they are working on fixing all of the errors that were in the. The recent printed version.

  Carey: 3:32

  Things happen.

  Jennifer: 3:34

  Are you, when do you expect to take your judge's exam and be finished?

  Jodi: 3:40

  I am hoping in January. Until I ask the director of the licensing program, which show would be best. the best for me to take it at. One of my two options is one week after Knoxville. I am really hoping that he asks me to head up to Massachusetts so I have a month to study. Also want to make sure I do it at a show that makes sense and has the right people there and the right selection of birds.

  Carey: 4:07

  So we need to look at having her back on the show sometime in March because, David brought us something good and I really think being able to say Judge Jodi would be fun.

  Jennifer: 4:21

  I see a whole YouTube channel coming up, Judge Jodi and everything.

  Carey: 4:25

  She does really good on social media. She can start a YouTube channel called Judge Jodi. She's gonna go ahead and be recording more stuff, and then as soon as she gets that official title, make every one of those public, it's gonna go viral.

  Jodi: 4:41

  Oh, many people actually already know me as Jodi Chicken. That's a nickname I picked up. Years ago. And that's my handle on just about every social media platform is Jodi chicken. All one one

  Carey: 4:53

  Jodi chicken. There it is.

  Jodi: 4:56

  So what breeds do you race? So currently working with light Bantam Brahmas and Saramas. I've worked with previously, starting from what I began with, were large fowl Cochins, then got Bantam Cochins. And those two were my main breeds for about 10 years. Got into, in between have gotten into Bantam Barn of Elders, tried raising Koshamos, that didn't go all that well, had a hard time hatching and raising those. And now, yeah, fully transitioned into Brahmas and Saramas. And I hope to get back into coaches one day, but had to limit myself during college and in between still living at home to having my own place one day.

  Jennifer: 5:42

  Understandable. We didn't actually have you on the podcast today in order to harass you about a new YouTube show, which we just made that up. It's not really out there. But. We have a mutual person that we know in Murfreesboro because Michael has talked to you, right? Yes, so we have a junior. So this is a shout out to MJ in Murfreesboro He is showing my Buff Orpington's and I believe he picked up Some from Jerry this weekend. Also he got some bullets from him and so he's super excited. He's had me over to his farm to help him with selection and looking at the birds and different things. I think he's 11. I think it's 11, 10, 11, something like that. Anyway, so they posed a bunch of questions because they're wanting to do showmanship. And I don't know anything about showmanship. I've never even seen that at a show that I've been to. Is that a more Northern thing versus a Southern thing?

  Jodi: 6:48

  Not necessarily. You just see it more frequently up north. It's pushed more, especially in that Ohio belt region. In Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, that area. Showmanship is incredibly competitive. It's also pretty competitive once you get down into Florida in the areas that they have agriculture. For some reason, it's very weak in the southeast area. I think education with the animals that they're raising when they're in programs like 4 H and FFA is just emphasized harder in other regions and I think it's also, no, I don't want to insult the Southeast as a whole, but I just see parents up north put more emphasis on their kids to study more about any kind of project or animal they're raising, rather than just having it for fun and just doing it. To have it because they're interested in it. It's just a different mentality that exists.

  Jennifer: 7:49

  I think Michael is going to work with the Middle Tennessee 4 H. I'm going to go up there and help him in January do some stuff. And so why don't you explain to our listeners what showmanship is? Because, I don't really know either,

  Jodi: 8:06

  yeah, so usually I define showmanship as an in person quiz about the bird you've brought. Now, the bird you've brought doesn't have to be the same as any of the entries that you've put in the show. It be the same breed, it doesn't have to be the same variety, same size. It can be whatever you want, so long as it's a standardized or recognized breed. If your bird's a mix between two recognized breeds, you can work with that as long as you know the standard for both. So you might have to work harder if you don't have a generic breed per se. But a lot of people come to me with that. It's it's a mixed bird. Like, all right you have more work to do then because now you have to know both sides of that bird's history. But I have a lot of people ask. What makes a good showmanship bird? And that's actually the question that MJ sent us was. What makes the right bird to use in showmanship? The first thing is, of course, a bird that's a recognized breed, so that there is a written standard on it that you can study. That there's written rules and definitions of the defects and DQs that you can memorize, that you can learn to point out on your bird. Second thing is a bird that you can handle well. Some younger kids get into a large breed as soon as they start like I did. I was 10 years old and I was trying to show 10 pound birds in showmanship. That was difficult. That's when I started picking up some phantom coachings. I had a mini version. It was a lot easier for my small hands to handle. Third thing is a bird that you are comfortable using. Some kids actually do better when they swap between breeds more often, so that they're staying more engaged and studying more breeds more frequently. Other kids do better when they have a breed that they're very consistent with. I used Cochins for at least six years straight, starting out in showmanship, before I branched out into using anything else. At that point, I got a little too comfortable. But for someone who's just starting out, don't be afraid to use a bird that's a breed that you're already familiar with. There is nothing wrong with that. Some people think that it's going to get them extra points if it's something that they're not showing. There's, I don't know what you have in the cage in there. I shouldn't necessarily, none of those coop tags have your name on it. You've come up to me in line, you're holding your bird, your only job is to tell me what bird that is and what you know about it. Other things that would make a good showmanship bird, these are nitpicky and really, further steps down the line. It can be helpful to have a bird that's not perfect, especially if there are any DQs or sorry, disqualifications that are very apparent on the bird. If your bird has a side spring on its comb, or you've got a coaching with feather legs that are, the feathers are stiff and it has a vulture hop, disqualifications or major defects that are easy to point out and discuss can actually be really helpful in showmanship. Some people, some kids get very concerned that they have to bring the best bird they have for showmanship. I'm not judging the bird or the quality of it. I want to see that the bird is calm when you handle it, and I want to see that you've cleaned and prepped the bird, but that's it. If it's got any apparent issues, all the better, as long as you can discuss it.

  Jennifer: 11:37

  So let's do a visual here. So basically you're standing there, and the kid, is this a kid only? Is showmanship just for kids or adults too?

  Jodi: 11:47

  So showmanship is generally considered 18 and under.

  Jennifer: 11:50

  Okay.

  Jodi: 11:51

  Once your kid is old enough to hold a bird, they should usually be able to enter like the peewee category. Usually that's about four or five years old. Yeah. Up until 18.

  Jennifer: 12:02

  Okay. And so then they're going to walk up to you and it's their turn with their bird and you're going to ask them questions.

  Jodi: 12:09

  Every show is a little different. It depends on who's running it. When I'm the one that's in charge of managing it, I do it by age group. I'll ask that everyone in that age group be waiting in line with their bird. And then I'll call their name. Whoever's next will come up to me where I'll have the display cage waiting to the side. And we'll start off with, Hi, my name's Jodi. I'm your showmanship judge today. What's your name? And then awesome, what bird did you bring today? Almost every showmanship judge should start off with those three steps of here's me, who are you, and what bird did you bring? That's your cue to start going through the basic steps of this is my Bantam Black Cochin Hen. She is a Bantam Cochin. Cochins originated from, you can start giving the history of your bird, just a few basics about the breed, things like that. I've had some judges that just, They've opened the floor on me especially Ohio Nationals. They're, they can be tricky. They can be hard.

  Jennifer: 13:15

  They'll just

  Jodi: 13:16

  open the floor for you to go into a five minute spiel about your bird. For some kids they're waiting for that cue of, okay, when do I say the next part? Others will ask every single question, almost too many, and then I'll already answered half their questions when they get there. So there's not a perfect guide step by step for what a showmanship judge is going to do or ask, because there should always be some questions that are a little different. And every show, every judge has their own process for it. In general, if they're using a YEPA sheet, the Youth Exhibition Poultry Association, that has a standardized order of questions and a standardized order of procedure of what order those things should happen in. But not every show uses those sheets, so it could be different.

  Jennifer: 14:10

  Gotcha. Okay. So what are you're going to obviously judge a Pee Wee different than a 17 year old, right?

  Jodi: 14:19

  Yes. So my basic expectations. So Pee Wee is usually up to six years old. Junior, the junior age category with YEPA is seven to 10. Then intermediate is 11 to 13. Okay. And then senior is 14 to 16. That intermediate age of 11 to 13 is honestly the most competitive age group because there's a major developmental difference between an 11 year old and a 13 year old. Most kids do a lot of growing in those few years. It's part of why that group is usually the usually has a lot of kids in it, but it's the smallest age range, except for the juniors, but a peewee for a five or six year old. Okay. You have a chicken. Basic, like what kind of animal is this? Is it a chicken? Is it a duck? Is it a goose? I've seen little kids do it with a goose. Oh, wow. The goose is about as big as the kid. Oh, okay. A little kid doing it with a call duck. All right. So is this called a girl or a boy? Like you say, it's a girl. How do you know that? One little kid went because she quacks. Absolutely. That's right. And I want a little kid at that age to point out maybe five to 10 points about their parts of their bird. Like, all right. I'll take the bird from them earlier than I will other ages. They're little, they got to hold that bird for awhile. Like, all right, ask me your bird. And I'll point like, all right, so what's this? It's the beak. All right, what's this? That's the eye. What's this? The comb. I'll motion to the part I want them to tell me. Once you get to seven and up, I expect them to start pointing that out on their own. Their motor skills are a little better. For most kids, they can hold the bird while they're still, telling me what parts of the bird they're describing. Once you get into that intermediate age of 11 to 13, once you, once they start telling me the anatomy of their bird, I don't want them just to be holding it. I want them to be motioning to what part. All right, this is the beak, the comb, the eyes, the wattles, and I want them to go through the whole bird on their own. No assistance by then. And I want the wings displayed. That, that's a hard skill to talk about just on a podcast with no chicken to show you, but I, when I have senior age kids who are 16 and they're still holding the bird to their chest and just saying, And this is the wing, show me the wing. We can spread the wing out. You should be able to hold the bird in one hand and spread it out. And if the bird's too large for that, then you can set it on the floor. A lot of shows will have a table by showmanship. We can work out other ways to display the bird if it's too big to handle like that. Some kids will use turkeys. That's gonna be complicated. One of the understanding of larger birds.

  Jennifer: 17:20

  So let's look MJ made us a list of questions which you've seen. So his first question is what makes a good bird a showmanship bird? I mean from what you're telling me it sounds like just one that he's going to be comfortable with.

  Jodi: 17:35

  One that they're comfortable with that has a written standard. That may be hard for a beginner if they don't have any. Any truly APA accepted breeds, if they still have their backyard birds and some of them are mixed, if they're like, if they're just listed as Easter Eggers, it's not really an Americana. but it's mixed, that might be difficult, makes it a lot easier to do showmanship and to study for it if it's a recognized breed. Once you have that, those are the, that's the main step. It's just having a bird that you can study and that you know how to.

  Jennifer: 18:13

  So like a five year old could get away, this is a question not a statement, so could a five year old get away with a backyard bird and a 16 year old can't because you need an APA standard bird, or no?

  Jodi: 18:27

  Senior will be greatly hindered by trying to use a backyard bird that's not just one, that's not just one breed.

  Jennifer: 18:35

  Okay.

  Jodi: 18:36

  A six year old would be able to get most of the way through showmanship and would not be hindered too much by that. Because, yeah, I just need to know what kind of, what the parts of your chicken are. Is it, is this a hen or a rooster? Do you know the difference between a hen and a pullet? If I'm really pushing them? Because I try to push every age group to a question level that they can't answer.

  Carey: 19:01

  I mean you got a 4 or 5 year old that says chicken. That's cute. They get a lot of leeway. But you got a 16 year old that says chicken and you're like, okay buddy. A little bit more

  Jodi: 19:15

  chicken. I do hope you know that. So

  Jennifer: 19:21

  if you just want, if you just have a five or six year old who just wants to get involved, just grab one they're comfortable with.

  Jodi: 19:28

  Yes.

  Jennifer: 19:29

  Okay. Make sense. Okay. I can see it. All so question number two, how far ahead of the show do I need to ID my showmanship bird? Okay.

  Jodi: 19:39

  As much time as your kid needs to study, needs to be comfortable with it. Your showmanship bird does not have to be entered ahead of time. In fact, shouldn't be. In most shows it's, not considered acceptable to use the same bird that you've entered in the junior show for showmanship. If it's a smaller show, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. If you talk to the show staff like, hey, this is our first show, this is the only bird we have, just talk to someone about it. But if you're at a big show like Ohio National, you can't, they cannot predict or coordinate when your kid's gonna be in showmanship versus when the judge is going to be on that row. If the bird's not there, the judge is just going to mark that bird as out and move on.

  Jennifer: 20:24

  Okay, so this would be a good point to a good place to point out. So there's 2 things we're talking about here. 1 is just the show where we plop a bird in the cage and you guys just walk up and down the aisles and we sit and yapper and go out to lunch and stuff and then showmanship. Is where it's more active between the participant, the judge and the bird. It's two separate things. And so you wouldn't want to use the same bird. I can understand that because the bird needs to be in a cage for the regular show. You

  Carey: 20:56

  may have a judge needing to judge that bird without you there, because it's rude and unacceptable when you're at a show, when the person doing showmanship calls for you to bring your bird. And. Can't be in two places at one time.

  Jennifer: 21:15

  And a lot of people haven't been to shows before. So to create a visual, you walk into the show as an exhibitor and you pop your bird in the cage and you just wait, but the showmanship is more interactive.

  Jodi: 21:29

  Yes.

  Jennifer: 21:30

  The different portion of the show.

  Jodi: 21:32

  Anytime I'm at a show and I've now just gone to show I'm too old to do showmanship and I'm not there to do it. I don't know what to do with myself.

  Jennifer: 21:42

  I know you're like sitting there going, there's so much stuff I need to do at home.

  Jodi: 21:47

  Yeah. I was always, every show I went to as a kid, I was always doing showmanship. And then I transitioned into just about every time I was there, I was either clerking or running showmanship. And now I'm just clerking for credit. And Now if I'm just there, I don't know, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing, which granted, I know enough people I can talk all day. It just, it feels awkward now.

  Jennifer: 22:14

  Yep. All right. His third question, how do I actually train them? So do you train them or you just get used to them?

  Jodi: 22:25

  So yeah, he's saying, do I just handle them daily or is there something more to do? There are some birds that are so crazy that daily handling does not make enough of a difference. It really helps if you're starting out with a bird that is already calm, a bird that's already older and just will sit in your hand longer. If your kid has one kind of, one particular bird that they can just carry around for five or ten minutes and the bird will sit there and put up with it, that's a very strong candidate for showmanship. If it's a bird that you can't catch or anytime you do catch it, it screams like you're about to wring its neck, not a great candidate for showmanship. Even a month of cage training may not make enough difference for them to be able to hold them properly. And that's another important thing for training them. The main thing you need to train that chicken to do for showmanship is to be comfortable in the proper hold. I don't have a visual for you right now, but the proper hold for a showmanship bird, or any bird in general, is one hand underneath the breast from the front with the legs in between your fingers, wherever is comfortable. Then you should be able to hold one wing down with your thumb and the other side of the bird against your chest. Or, if it's a bantam, you can usually get your hand all the way around, at least as an adult with a bantam. Hands big enough to do that.

  Carey: 23:50

  So like you want to tuck the head up under your arm, have one leg between your index finger and your pinky, the other leg in between your others and tuck it like a football close for visual.

  Jodi: 24:08

  All of those things except leave the head in front. I want to be able to see the head of the bird.

  Carey: 24:14

  That makes sense for the showmanship part. I was talking about running. But, yeah, you would essentially hold the bird like a football. Can look around and see everybody.

  Jodi: 24:23

  I Have a lot of kids walk up in line like that. They've just got the bird shoved under one arm, birds facing forward and they're moving together.

  Carey: 24:33

  But that's not what you want. You want the bird facing towards the person. When they hold it out, you see the back of it or you see the side where they can show the wing and all that stuff.

  Jennifer: 24:43

  The side.

  Jodi: 24:44

  Okay. I'm going to use this. All right. This is a lamp I have.

  Jennifer: 24:51

  That's a cute lamp. It's a chicken lamp.

  Jodi: 24:54

  It's a chicken lamp. So here's your chicken. Hands in between the legs. I can't really actually fit. All right. You can hold down the wings. When you walk up in line, holding your bird to the side like this.

  Carey: 25:06

  Okay, so you want to hold the bird in front of you

  Jodi: 25:09

  and then when you're displaying the bird to me, you can turn it however you need

  Carey: 25:14

  to show whatever it is. You're at

  Jodi: 25:16

  the wing. You're showing me the head and one note, one good note. I'll probably mention this again. When you're going through your bird with the judge, always start from the beak, whether you go this way, whether you go that way, always start with the beak. So

  Jennifer: 25:36

  interesting. All right. All right. Let's see. Grooming is next. That's a loaded question and that's going to totally depend on the bird. Really soft feather, hard feather.

  Jodi: 25:48

  Yeah. I have a whole PowerPoint on this one. Yeah. Just condense it for kids. We're going to condense this one. So there's many ways you can prep your bird. For most birds, you're going to need to give them a bath ahead of time. And for most birds, that should be a full bath. Get the whole chicken wet. Get the whole chicken dry again. My personal process for that, that I've used with any breed I've raised, I've got a utility sink. I fill that with pretty hot water. I mix in a little bit of Tide laundry detergent. Put the chicken in. I've got a big cup. Scoop water. Rinse it over the bird. Make sure the feet are clean. If you've got a clean legged bird, you can use a soft brush or a toothbrush to scrub those clean, if they're dirty. Make sure the area around the vent is completely clean. Make sure there's no gunk on their comb or around their eyes. Rinse the bird off. A lot of times I'll mix in a little bit of white vinegar in the water. That really cuts down the stench of the bird. Then towel dry them for a few minutes. Just wrap them like a chicken burrito. Let them soak for a little bit. We'll sop up the water, and then I usually blow dry them some. You get a hairdryer, You turn it to medium heat, high air, not high heat. You might fry the chicken's feathers. And mainly focus on drying the area underneath the wings, and the belly, and around the vent. The rest of the chicken should be able to air dry. Even if the show is the next day, that, that should be enough.

  Jennifer: 27:26

  Gotcha.

  Jodi: 27:27

  Oh, sorry. One more. Double check that the beak and the toenails aren't too long. You can use regular toenail trimmers, dog nail trimmers, make sure the upper mandible of the beak. The upper mandible is not overgrown too far. You can trim it back even with the bottom mandible. Don't trim the lower mandible. That one does not grow back. And then the toenails, you can trim them back to a reasonable length.

  Jennifer: 27:58

  Sounds good. And then Neosporin or

  Jodi: 28:01

  Sorry.

  Jennifer: 28:02

  No, you're fine. We can edit that. Okay. On the combs and the legs and the waddles, neosporin or Vicks, I've seen lots of people put different stuff on them.

  Jodi: 28:15

  Vicks You can just use regular hand moisturizer. That works fine. Some people use BedRx. That gets them really red the morning of the show. All of those are good options.

  Jennifer: 28:27

  Okay. All right. Let's see what's next. How do you train them to stand properly in the pen, especially when putting them back in the pen after talking with the judge?

  Jodi: 28:39

  That one's a little harder to train per se, as it just showed a red recording error below on here.

  Jennifer: 28:51

  It's fine.

  Jodi: 28:51

  No, okay. But that, that one's a little harder to train. Usually, that's a handling thing, and just practicing handling them, holding them in a pose position, and Just working with them. There's not, there's some breeds that's very important. If it's a modern game, judges expect to see those birds especially trained to pose for a judge. You can try using treats to teach them to stand up and pay attention. If you cage train them before shows, teaching them to stretch up for those so that when we come by With our shiny judging sticks that they know to follow that and pose for us for other breeds like a coaching I don't need it to pose per se but those birds are usually calm enough that once you just set them in the cage and Fix them they'll pose for a couple seconds before they start moving again

  Jennifer: 29:49

  Yeah,

  Jodi: 29:49

  other leghorn, you know As long as you can just, as long as I see an attempt to pose the bird, I'm not going to be harsh on the bird immediately moving. That's a very active breed.

  Jennifer: 30:05

  Gotcha. So breed dependent. Yes. Okay. But at home you could use a dog cage. You could use a drop cage. You know what you could just try to simulate what you're going to see at the show.

  Jodi: 30:20

  Yeah, or even just a tabletop away. Just setting them on a tabletop that's got a small carpet or a few shavings on it and just training them to pose, teaching them. Just trying to enforce a habit. Chickens are very habitual learners. They don't really listen as much to instruction the way some other animals do. They don't usually pick it up after just once or twice. With chickens, it's habitual. You have to keep them in a coop for at least a week and then they learn that's where they live again. If it's not far from their previous coop, they might still go back to the other one because habitually that's what they used to know. So just getting them used to something and accustomed to it.

  Jennifer: 31:04

  Maybe play a radio with noise, so they're used to noise that, out here in the country, they wouldn't know what that stuff is.

  Carey: 31:12

  I'll say this, I actually went, when I was at the Ohio national last year, I recorded about an hour of audio and I did a 12 hour loop of that hour and it sounds like a really loud poultry show for 12 hours. And that was actually recommended to me by Rip, he said, if you really want to get a bird calm and stress free. In a case at a show, you need to go to one, record some audio, loop it and play it constantly. And then you do that for a few days before the show, and it'll be like the bird was home.

  Jodi: 31:54

  That's actually really good advice. I've never done that myself, but, because a lot of birds do

  Jennifer: 31:59

  get to the show and they

  Jodi: 32:00

  panic the first time. Yeah. They're not used to it.

  Jennifer: 32:05

  Alright, two more questions. What tips do you have for talking with the judge?

  Jodi: 32:12

  Okay, I've seen some showmanship judges, usually they're older they really, they count some amount of points for how comfortable the kid is talking to them. Personally, I don't have any kind of points that I ever count off for their level of nervousness, how comfortable they are with it, I'm just counting on the information they give me. I just, some kids are going to be naturally comfortable with it, like I was. I know many others are not, and that's something that they have to work towards. I especially don't pick on younger kids for it. Once they're four, in the senior level, that might come into consideration. Only if I'm having to nitpick between, two kids that are both at a hundred points, and, both the tiebreakers didn't work. If that's the wire I come down to. But that's the last thing I want to pick on when the focus here is what they've learned about their bird. This is not them trying to sell a bird. This is not a presentation to a whole group. This is just a quiz about the bird and what they know. So personally, I don't want to consider, their own behavior per se. I just want to consider how well they've presented the bird and what they know about it.

  Jennifer: 33:33

  But it would be nice to be able to hear them, them talk loud enough and not mumble. In normal conversational type stuff, normal contact respectful. Not y'all done all that stuff, right?

  Jodi: 33:48

  Which I guess I don't mention that because that can impact the information they give me. So it needs to be communicated well enough that I receive the information so that I can score them on that. If they don't explain it well enough, then I don't give them full credit. That's, sometimes the kid knows just as much as the kid that got full points, but if they don't. explain it well or fully, then they're not going to get full credit on the section. And sometimes that nervousness does impact that. See a lot of kids afterwards thinking, I knew the answer to that one. I just, I got too worked up and then I said the wrong thing. And that does happen. Some of that just comes with practice.

  Jennifer: 34:34

  And you know what? You're going to do it for the rest of your life. You're always going to forget something. So it's not a big deal. Just do the best you can, right?

  Jodi: 34:43

  Sorry, Kerry. Were you saying something just a moment ago?

  Carey: 34:46

  I was going to say, I would not walk up to a judge and say, hey, bruh.

  Jodi: 34:52

  How you doing?

  Carey: 34:53

  Most of the judges that I have met that would probably Make them turn around.

  Jodi: 34:59

  Yeah. Would not take well to that.

  Carey: 35:03

  No, if I would talk to a judge, I would be extremely respectful. Regardless of that person's age, you got it. Sometimes you have to respect the title. Because some older people tend to have issues with being respectful to younger people just because. That's how they are. But I think if a person has that title, you should respect them and show them the respect that they've earned by going through the clerkship and all that other stuff. So I would, if you're wanting to make a positive impression on a judge, using your manners would, that would definitely get you ahead of most.

  Jodi: 35:44

  Yes. I always count points for introducing yourself. If, if someone, if a kid walks up to me and says, Hi, my name is, and this is my bird, I am instantly more impressed with that kid. That is a very good way to present yourself. That's a great first impression. I'm already looking forward to the rest of our discussion because I feel like this kid has come prepared. Even if you feel like you didn't get to study well enough and that maybe you're gonna get half the questions wrong, walking in and being the first person to introduce yourself and not me starting the discussion, That's a really great way to start that discussion.

  Jennifer: 36:23

  Oh, good too. All right, he has one final question. How can we determine whether the shows actually have a competitive junior division?

  Jodi: 36:34

  That's a good note. Any show that is APA or and or ABA certified should have a competitive junior section. As for if it's not certified, if it's a fair show, that may mean checking their favor book or even contacting the people in charge. If it's an FFA or 4 H show, it should only be a junior section. It should only be kids entering birds. Other than that, that question could also mean checking that, The junior show is offering showmanship because there are a lot of smaller shows that host the junior section. They always do, but they're not actually hosting showmanship that day. And sometimes it can be difficult to find that information. Especially finding the right person to contact if they're having it. That usually means looking at Facebook, checking poultryshowcentral. com, seeing if they've posted anything, or at least a contact number for someone to reach.

  Jennifer: 37:37

  Showing birds is a kind of a solitary sport almost, in that every once in a while you get together with other solitary people just to chit chat and see what's happening and how the other birds and did you make improvements and what this judge saw that you might be blind to seeing and it's, each show is different. They have personalities. Yes. Alright, I had a question as you were talking, so the points, if somebody wanted to get started in showmanship, where do they find out how the points are dibbied up?

  Jodi: 38:19

  Points on the showmanship quiz itself, or points they can earn through organizations for it.

  Jennifer: 38:27

  The hundred points that you keep mentioning. Okay.

  Jodi: 38:30

  Okay. As of. Since the recent YEPA director took over all YEPA sheets add up to 100. Any sheets I write for showmanship add up to 100. That does not necessarily mean every showmanship quiz is out of 100 points, and some shows have their own system. I cannot speak for any of those others. Those all may be handled differently, and I don't understand how they do their scoring and what sections they weigh heavier than others. Personally, I can say I put the most points on the standard discussion and the anatomy and DQs and defects of their breed. That is the main section I focus on. There's about 10 points for their self intro for their introduction, for them being in proper dress, for their bird being prepared. There's about 30 points for the breed standard discussion. There's about 20 to 30 more points attributed to anatomy and defect and DQ discussions. The rest of the points are all usually just individual questions. Things like name, name all the other ABA classes, or, this is a silky, you already said it's in featherlegged. Can you tell me three other breeds that are in this class? Other, there might be some further questions of, this is a silky, this is not. It's not a game bird, but is it a defect or D disqualification DQ for an old English to be dubbed or undubbed or to be undubbed, there might be questions about other breeds, but they will not count for as much as the discussion about your own breed. That's the main breakdown of mine, and on my personal sheet that I use for showmanship at my fair and other 4 H's, I have five points at the end for thanking the judge. That's not on Yepa's sheets, but that is something I've added personally. Just to follow up on that, if they can introduce themselves, and if they can thank the judge at the end, that really shows me how well they've prepared and practiced.

  Jennifer: 40:44

  Good to know. Good to know. That is a lot of information. Wow. I didn't know hardly any of it.

  Jodi: 40:53

  And we could be here all night. I could talk all night. There's, there is so much to know about exhibition showing and we're only getting the tip of the iceberg with just talking about showmanship. There's a little bit you have to understand about in cage showing and. APA and ABA shows to get through it, but in general, you don't have to have shown to do showmanship.

  Jennifer: 41:19

  Good to know.

  Jodi: 41:20

  There's just some things you might have to practice and getting your hands on a standard, which can be a little difficult right now. If you have a particular breed you want to study, reach out to someone, they can probably send you photos of their cop, theirs. And maybe they can let you borrow it while you're at a show. Yeah. Hopefully they are able to get that new APA standard out soon. And we can look forward to the next edition of the ABA standard soon, but the current one is available to get. That's the biggest hurdle to get through for studying for showmanship is getting your own copy of a standard because there is so much you would not expect to have to get from that, but there's actually a lot.

  Jennifer: 41:58

  Yep. Carrie, can you get one of your 30 or 40 kids to go into showmanship? Like she's laughing. She's what?

  Jodi: 42:08

  That's an uphill battle right

  Carey: 42:09

  there. None of them are interested in poultry, which is odd. I have, there's 10 of us in my house and I'm really the only one. I'll take that back. The 10 month old, she likes chickens.

  Jodi: 42:24

  We're going to

  Jennifer: 42:24

  bank on her. Jodi, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. I'm so glad I could. I've really been looking forward to this. And hopefully this answered all of MJ's questions and inspired some other people. But MJ, you have more questions, feel free. You know my phone number. Let me know. And if

  Jodi: 42:45

  anyone has questions for me, you can always find me. Again, most of my social media handles are Jodi Chicken. You can find me as Jodi Fry on Facebook. Facebook is where most chicken business tends to happen.

  Jennifer: 42:58

  So

  Jodi: 42:58

  you will find a lot of other poultry clubs and shows on Facebook. You just have to search for them. And use your resources like Poultry Show Central. You can search for, any show in your area. And if it doesn't say they have showmanship, don't be afraid to reach out and ask because maybe they just don't think they have enough interest. There have been quite a few shows in the last year where it's been only a month before the show and I get a call of, hey, had a few people ask if we were doing the showmanship. We didn't plan on it, but can you come run it?

  Jennifer: 43:33

  Good. That's a good thing.

  Jodi: 43:34

  Yeah. So absolutely, find the person to contact, reach out and ask about it because they might just find a way to host it in the next week or two before the show. If they realize people want it.

  Jennifer: 43:45

  Cause they're just chicken people too. And we all want to talk chicken. Yes. All day. All right, thank you for joining us, and we will probably talk to you later about something else. Yes, I look forward to it.

  Carey: 43:59

  Have a good one. Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

  44:28

  Mhm.

Carey and Jennifer on Winterizing Your Flock

We discuss tips to winterize your birds. We live in the south, but we still have to get ready like everyone else!

Winterization

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Kerry Blackman, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.

  Jennifer: 0:24

  Carey, winter's coming, even though it says it's 84 degrees here today.

  Carey: 0:28

  We've already set our clocks back and all that good jazz, but, when I was outside earlier today, I started sweating, so I'm like, is it really winter?

  Jennifer: 0:37

  We've got our air on.

  Carey: 0:40

  I haven't turned, I think the heat so far cut on once. It's yeah, but either way, winter's coming.

  Jennifer: 0:46

  We do, and we have to prep for it. And, we're in the south, so we don't really do a lot of hard prepping.

  Carey: 0:55

  But,

  Jennifer: 0:56

  We still seems like we get a week or two or three, I would say three max, of really serious cold that just makes you want to, Not care if you have animals and question all of your life decisions. Are you there?

  Carey: 1:14

  And with this, in this show, like I've done, I, we've both done some prep for this show. I've talked to my friend Mike up in Alaska. And I've talked to Esther and John in Vermont, and Mandy in Ohio. And you've talked to some folks.

  Jennifer: 1:31

  I did. I talked to Alexander in Florida and they don't do much down there. A friend in Oregon that I talked to. They, I think it depends on which side of the mountains you're on over there on how much prep you do, but everybody does something a little bit different. So I figured we would just talk about what we do here. And then if you're new to chickens and you can take that and translate it to your location. I don't want to talk about being in Alaska because we're not up there and never been to Alaska. And I don't know that I really care to go to Alaska, honestly.

  Carey: 2:08

  But I think for him in Alaska he has to use heated waters

  Jennifer: 2:14

  and

  Carey: 2:15

  he said that's the vast majority of his energy consumption in the wintertime is the heater for his poultry waters and the water tanks for his other animals as well.

  Jennifer: 2:27

  I can see that I have a son and that lives in Alaska, actually. They're waiting on a fuel delivery right now.

  Carey: 2:36

  That could get rough.

  Jennifer: 2:38

  Yep. So here I'm in middle Tennessee. Some people don't know that, but I'm in middle Tennessee. You're in middle Alabama. So we're not in the mountains. Middle Tennessee is like a. a bowl per se, and I'm on the southern edge of that bowl, so not really flatlands, but not in the mountains either.

  Carey: 3:02

  Pretty close to flat there though.

  Jennifer: 3:04

  It is yeah, they have a nice flat property on purpose. But regardless of where you live, you do have to take into account ventilation. I think people want to wrap up their birds, keep them warm, And sometimes that lack of ventilation is going to do a whole lot more damage than the cold will ever do.

  Carey: 3:24

  Yep.

  Jennifer: 3:27

  So do you change your feed at all in the wintertime?

  Carey: 3:31

  So what I do, I use the same, like same mix of feed that I use in the summertime because here we don't really see below 32 for more than a week or so at a time very often because In Alabama, it could be 26 one day and 40 the next, so what I do mine a little different I'll take, and as I'm getting my feed together for that day, I'll take let's say a 50 pound bag of feed and I'll toss in not quite a whole scoop, about eight ounces worth of cracked corn. I'll throw that in with a 50 pound bag and mix it up just to give them a little bit extra corn. Roughly 8%, if you're calculating the math. And that, that corn helps them build up their internal heat that they naturally put off to keep them warm. So if it's below 32, I'll do that. But other than that, I don't change anything about the feed. And, from talking to people up north. and talking to Jeff about feed, that's really what he recommends is doing that if it's going to be below freezing. Not really changing a whole lot.

  Jennifer: 4:46

  Is the corn and the heat, is that just like us and comfort food and bread and soups and creams and stuff, same concept, the carbs?

  Carey: 4:56

  That is exactly why. A lot of times people like chili, people think, Oh, you don't eat chili in the wintertime. No, I can eat it in summertime too. But soups are typically a winter food and it's the same. It's the same thing. The carbs inside their body do a carb load and it makes it warmer. So

  Jennifer: 5:16

  what's their body temperature?

  Carey: 5:18

  It's

  Jennifer: 5:18

  a quiz.

  Carey: 5:19

  I want to say one Oh four, one Oh five. I think it's one Oh

  Jennifer: 5:22

  eight.

  Carey: 5:23

  I know it's at least four degrees warmer than ours. But they are, their internal body temp period is hotter. That's why when they do the molt, a lot of people recommend to lower the protein level of the feed to not make their body hotter. Because they're already miserable, especially in Alabama.

  Jennifer: 5:46

  Yeah, that's they're like having hot flashes during the molt and stripping all their clothes off because they can't get cool enough.

  Carey: 5:52

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 5:53

  In the wintertime, they're putting them all back on and eating the carbs, trying to load it up like a bear fixing a hibernate, right?

  Carey: 6:01

  Yep, that's it.

  Jennifer: 6:02

  Yep, so I add cracked corn too. So I feed in the mornings.

  Carey: 6:06

  And

  Jennifer: 6:06

  if it's going to be super duper cold, I'll go out about an hour before dark and I'll just give them, I don't measure food like you do, but I'll give them, something to graze on for a little bit and get some corn in their system. What about the coupes? Do you change anything about your coupes?

  Carey: 6:24

  Depending. Some of my pens that I Have metal around the bottom, like a solid sheet of metal. And those I don't, because if it's really cold and really windy, they'll get down lower and block it, block the wind. But I have found that even when it's in the teens, a lot of my birds, they want to be on the roost pole. They want to have everything flopping in the wind and They don't. Now, I do have some that are made of chain link fence or two by four wire all the way to the ground. And on those, I use something solid like a piece of wood a thick sheet of plastic. If you can find a company that does drink machines. The Lexan out of the front that's, they can't change it anymore or it's not good for them to use in a machine. You can drill some holes in that and Zippy tie it to your stuff and it won't flop around and make a lot of noise. That works really well. The thing about the noise, like I don't like plastic because plastic sheeting, if you don't secure it really well, it's going to flop. It's going to make a lot of racket. The birds get real nervous and anxious and stressed out. And, you're already getting, not getting a whole lot of eggs. And when they get stressed out, you're going to get even less. So I don't really like using that a whole lot.

  Jennifer: 7:53

  I don't use plastic at all. So my breeder coops, they have a metal around them also. And the roost are lower than the top edge of the metal. Except for the turkeys can look out if they want to. But the chickens they're blocked from the wind, but now my main coop in the back is the whole lean to is the West side of my barn. So that coop gets the full brunt of a windy, rainy,

  Carey: 8:24

  whatever's

  Jennifer: 8:25

  coming at it kind of thing. And it's just hardware cloth on with a wing and a prayer, honestly. It's not predator proof at all, but the dogs keep everything out, so I'm not worried about it. But those chickens have been in there. We've been in this property four and a half years now. Same chicken coop. Wind hitting them, even when it was below zero, they were out there. They didn't care. And actually that coop was the only one I didn't have any trouble with. Nobody got sniffles and we got frostbite. Nobody got anything.

  Carey: 8:58

  I used to say that, freaking, you had to keep them warm. They're like pets and this, that, and the other. And then. A year ago, maybe I saw a picture of Bree's quail, her outdoor quail huts, like the snow was almost as big as it was. It's like she moved the snow out so she could feed them.

  Jennifer: 9:18

  Yep.

  Carey: 9:19

  I saw that. No heat, no nothing in there. And I'm like, if quail are cool at negative 40 and they're good. They just need to be out of the wind at negative 40. I'm overly confident that a chicken will be perfectly fine in Alabama. Yeah, even the 0,

  Jennifer: 9:36

  I don't know that my coop would be sufficient much further north from here. I think if we lived any further north, I would probably put someone break up the 1st year. We were here. I tried tarps. It, they just flap and flop and get tore up and it doesn't matter. I do have sunshades in there for the summertime though, to cool that down because they get the sunset. And that,

  Carey: 9:59

  yep.

  Jennifer: 10:02

  So I put sunshades up the heat bothers him more than the cold. So I don't use, I'm looking at our outline and I don't use tarps either. I don't put them anywhere. I don't put it over. If you're new to chickens one of the most common pictures we're going to see here soon will be somebody throwing a tarp over a makeshift coop and then the weight of the snow or the rain will collapse it and squish their chickens. I would highly suggest you're not put tarp tarps up. Any, in any fashion that they can collapse down.

  Carey: 10:38

  Yeah. Need to have a good frame up underneath it.

  Jennifer: 10:42

  Yeah. I almost don't think you should put tarps up as a roof, but everybody has to learn. I didn't, when I was first, when I first got turkeys my friend brought me a handful of turkeys that were probably three or four months old, and we put up Hippieville out in the woods and we put turkeys Pallets around trees just while we could put the chain link fence together to keep them in.

  Carey: 11:05

  And

  Jennifer: 11:05

  I threw a tarp up over the top of it and went out the next morning after the rain and they had a swimming pool down in the middle and their faces were squished up against the pallets. Like now what? What do we do now? Yeah. So I'm against tarps as roofs. All right. What about light? What do you do in the wintertime different?

  Carey: 11:26

  So I start a lighting program. Late August, early September. I have come on about like really right after the bolt because I let them go through that process and then I start I like to do 3 30 in the morning, 3 30 in the morning to 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Cause I want to get 16 hours worth of sunlight or some type of light, cause that helps with the reproductive. That makes the rooster more apt to do his job. That makes the hens, that gives them enough of a light cycle to where they, their bodies will lay those eggs out and make that work. Because my favorite time of the year to hatch is in the wintertime. Which is different, but. It's easier to not overheat a brooder in the wintertime than it is in the summertime. So I do that and I like to cut the lights off at five. Yes, that's not a full 16 hours. But it gives you that last couple of hours as natural daylight so they can roost like they normally would. And to me, I think that's really important for that natural progression to happen. A lot of people, another thing people will do is they'll only turn their lights on. If they turn them on at three 30, they'll only do it for a few hours and then let day happen. I leave mine on all day because I like for it to also be constant. Because to me, poultry are a lot like old men. We like things to be the same. We like for it to be constant all the time. We don't like change. So that's why I leave mine on from three 30 to five. It is what it is, but. It works. I get eggs year round.

  Jennifer: 13:08

  Mine are set to come on at 5 30 in the morning and they go off at nine at night, but that's in the inside of the barn. And that's year round. So nothing really changes for them during the winter. Now one thing I will do is any birds. That I'm going to be using as breeders. I will bring them down. I call them the condos. That's the East lean to on the barn. I have eight pins over there, nine pins over there and I'm actually ordered lights today. Now, I may do what you're talking about and turn those ones on at 3 in the morning. So they get like a natural. Sundown, but being on the east side, they're not going to see the sundown anyway. So I don't know if it really matters.

  Carey: 13:57

  It's that whole afternoon period when the, when the light starts to naturally progress down, they know, Hey, it's not really light. I need to find my roof spot for the night. Get there and do their thing. The ones that you have in the barn, they're used to it, right? That's their cycle every day I just do that because Jeff said it was less stressful on the birds and that's how I set it up and it works

  Jennifer: 14:23

  Yeah, I can see that because I have heard them where they you know You're turning lights off and then all of a sudden they're trying to find the roost, And they can't find it because they can't see at night So it makes sense what you're talking about Now, one other note I'd like to bring up here is a lot of people try to save electricity and just turn it on for the four or five hours. Those days, I don't, I'm assuming it's the same everywhere in the United States, but here we get the gloomy days in January, February and March, really. And you can, some days you can't hardly see it. Tell that it's not nighttime. The clouds are so thick. We don't get any daylight through really. And, um, if we're not getting that UV light and the birds are not getting the UV light either. So you've got to get those lights on them.

  Carey: 15:15

  And let's be honest, everybody's using LEDs now for everything. We're talking about one or two pennies a day for a light bulb.

  Jennifer: 15:23

  Yeah. And they're not really expensive. I've got eight foot sticks out there of LEDs. And I didn't pay what 10 a stick, maybe one on Amazon. I ordered some rope lighting today. I got a hundred feet for 40. That's what I'm going to put in the condos and they had a 15 percent off coupon. All right. Somebody asked me yesterday if I heated my bar. I do not at peak capacity in March and April. Now, this is my quail barn. I might have their 4, 000 birds in there and that does include grouts and chicks and the breeders and everybody else in there. That's a lot of body heat. And like this past, was it February when it was like two weeks of super duper cold? Yeah. We actually had to open the big doors and cool it back down. Their body heat would heat that barn up.

  Carey: 16:18

  You got an insulated barn, 3, 000 birds in there. You're gonna need to crack a window and turn the fan on to pull some cool air in.

  Jennifer: 16:25

  We did. Twice a day we had to go out there. We opened those big doors. I have 14 foot doors and we opened them up just to cool that barn back down. It was getting up in the 80s in there. It was crazy. We did not expect that because we just had that insulated last year, so it's only been like a year and a half ish or so. So that was like a pleasant surprise, actually.

  Carey: 16:48

  Now, even in the South, we do have times where water buckets freeze up. I'm not going to go buy some electric water buckets for that because they're 70, 80 bucks and it doesn't happen that often. But I will say this I can't remember exactly who told me this idea. They said get a quart jar of honey, whatever kind of honey you can get a quart jar of honey, put it in a bucket. Because in order for the honey has a lot lower freeze point. Than the water does and for the water to freeze it's got to get everything in it that cold so That suggestion was given to me and I was like, okay, i'm gonna try it I also use black buckets two reasons one in the summertime, it's not letting any sunlight in there. So i'm not going to have any algae growth and two When the sun peeps up in the wintertime, they heat up. And it's a lot easier to put in a frozen water bottle in the summertime, when it's going to be really hot, than it is to thaw out a solid bucket of ice.

  Jennifer: 18:01

  So I use black buckets too, and in the summertime, I move them in the shade. And in the wintertime, move them to the sun. And I had never heard the honey thing. That's new to me. I have heard that you can take an old soda bottle or something and fill it with salt water and it will do the same thing.

  Carey: 18:18

  I heard that too.

  Jennifer: 18:19

  Yeah. In my particular case, I just pull all their water. I just dump the buckets upside down at night because they're not drinking when it's dark. Anyway. Or

  Carey: 18:30

  the bed.

  Jennifer: 18:30

  Yeah, and you don't want them. We sit down south. We get big combs, big waddles because they got to cool themselves down in the summertime and we have a problem with them getting frostbite on their waddles where they drink out of the bucket. Their waddles get wet. Then they freeze. And I actually had not in 2024, but back in early 2023, I actually had two that just about completely lost their waddles. One of them was a coach and he had still no name at the time. And he looked stupid because his comb froze off and he looked like he had a Mohawk with no points and his waddles froze off. And so we called him Frosty. Krusty is still alive. He throws wonderful babies. A guy named Mike bought him and he loves him.

  Carey: 19:24

  There we go.

  Jennifer: 19:26

  So I would pull water buckets at night if it's going to be super duper cold. What you don't want to do I do see a lot of people buy old crock pots. And keep them on low. All that's doing is steaming. And then you're right back to that ventilation problem.

  Carey: 19:41

  I was going to say, unless you have an open coop and you're doing that, if you put water inside at night, like in a coop or something like that's going to put out a lot of humidity. And that is probably more dangerous to your birds than.

  Jennifer: 20:01

  Not having them in

  Carey: 20:03

  water. Because look, I'm going to tell you this. I know people that ship birds as far as Texas to the Philippines. They're not allowed to put water in there. And it's a three day trip no matter how you shake it. A whole banana or half an apple. Put that in the box with them. That's what they get for three days. And they make it. So if your birds go a couple hours without water, if they get thirsty enough, they're going to peck on the ice. But if that's the case, it's been way more than a couple of hours and that's on you. So like she said, dump the water out, fill it back up the next day.

  Jennifer: 20:49

  All right. Roost bars. Now I preach, preach, preach a nice wide two by four for the chickens. I use two by eights for the turkeys I have used two by sixes, but the idea is they have something substantial to stand on. You don't want to give, you don't want to give a 16 pound bird a one by. To stand on. Do you want to stand on a one by think about it?

  Carey: 21:14

  That one by is going to become U shaped instead of flat.

  Jennifer: 21:19

  But the, if you give them something where their toes wrap around and I know people think, oh, they roosted in trees and stuff. Yeah, they did, but they had their choice of branches to choose from. And I guarantee you, they picked the nice wide. limbs close to the trunk. They didn't go all the way out to the edges where it was a half an inch diameter. Because they're going, they're not dumb. They're going to look for comfort. And so when their toes are out, they want to rest their bodies over their toes so they don't get frostbite. You I've preached for years. You can learn so much if you just pull up a bucket and observe your birds And they don't want to wrap their toes around a roost. They want to stand on the roost and sit down on their toes. How about chicks in the winter? I know you like to do chicks in the winter.

  Carey: 22:17

  Indoors and breeder plates. That, that's what I do in the wintertime. Indoors in my barn so they're out of the wind. And breeder plates. Now I will say some of my show birds like you, I bring them in a barn, I put them in stalls. My barn does have A heater in it, but that heater is set to 50 degrees. Now this is a heater that is permanently mounted in the ceiling. It's a industrial rated heater designed for large buildings like barns and garages. So the chances of it tilting over and causing a fire are going to involve some pretty decent size lag bolts breaking. Should never happen, but I set the thermostat on 50 about chest height and that's it. And other than that, the brooders do their job because if you have brooders and it gets below that inside, they're really not going to keep the birds warm.

  Jennifer: 23:22

  No, and just make sure your brooder is not on cold concrete, because that cold will seep up through the floor, and the brooder plate is not designed to warm the space, it's designed to warm the chick, but they're resting on that cold floor. Get that brooder Up off of the floor so your room temperature air can get underneath it and keep it at room temperature.

  Carey: 23:47

  Especially if you're talking about quail, because if you set quail on the ground, even in the summertime, that coolness is going to radiate up and, you'll have quail in there with cold feet. Yeah,

  Jennifer: 24:02

  just anything you can to get that brooder up off the floor. I had a lady she ordered, I don't know. It's been a few years ago now. She wanted I want to say 250 eggs. I sent her quail eggs and she's way up north and she was brooding them in her basement. She had just stood up two by eights and put shavings on the. Concrete floor in the basement and it was a big space like 10 by 10 And she had three or four brooder plates set up and she's like they just are laying down and not moving And sometimes they're dying and they're just really lethargic and stuff and I said They're cold sit down on the concrete floor And see if that cold doesn't seep into your, the back of your thighs or or your feet even, so always test what you're doing with your own skin and see if you can't figure out what's going on because typically it's something fairly simple. It's not usually something that's really complex. And the last thing on our list here is air quality.

  Carey: 25:06

  And that's a big thing too. When you're putting up barriers to keep wind out and stuff like that, air quality is going to be a thing.

  Jennifer: 25:15

  Yeah. Don't build them a coffin because that's what it's going to probably turn into.

  Carey: 25:19

  Cause they're, from what I have been told in my studying and my research is. You can smell the ammonia. It's already too toxic. And our systems are a lot stronger than a chicken or a turkey or a quail system. To us, if it just stinks, to them, it could be choking them. Ventilation is key, but With the air movement in the ventilation, they need to be able to get out of that stream of air so they don't get too cold.

  Jennifer: 25:52

  Oh mine get cold.

  Carey: 25:54

  They're going to get cold regardless. That's why they tuck

  Jennifer: 25:57

  their head under their wing.

  Carey: 25:59

  Yep. There's, I have, I can look outside my bathroom windows and see some of my fly pens that I've got some birds in. And last winter, my wife was like, Hey, why, something's wrong with your bird. I said, what do you mean? She said, it's head's gone. And I'm like, whoa, what? And I get up and I go in there and I look out, it's heads under it's wing. She was like, why? Cause underneath that wing is warm and it's cold outside.

  Jennifer: 26:32

  So those big waddles and those big combs, you do need to put something on them when it's going to be super duper cold. Think people put Vaseline on them, Neosporin on them, something that doesn't freeze, Vicks. Since minor exhibition birds, I just bring them into the barn. A lot of people put their birds in show pens and show boxes and just stack them up. But again, we're in the South. Where those things, are a few nights a year, not, six months of the year. So, we're not built for that down here. We don't even own heavy coats down here. We just layer up sweatshirts down here. All so we go into panic mode when it's going to be down in the 20s or teens at night.

  Carey: 27:21

  For me, if it's going that cold at night, that's just a good sign to stay inside.

  Jennifer: 27:26

  Yep. But that also means your birds could get frostbite on their combs and waddles. So keep that in mind. And there's nothing you can do. You can't fix it. You can't do anything for it. You just leave it alone. And it just let nature take its course and let it do its thing. Frosty is going on, what, three years old now with his little Mohawk comb. And he looks I was going to

  Carey: 27:51

  say, if your bird gets that, you can't fix it. It's, if the feathers mess up, mold will fix that. But. It's not going to fix, but just know that's that it was frostbite and what you breed from that won't have it.

  Jennifer: 28:08

  Yeah. That's not a sign of his breeding ability. That's a sign of oops. I forgot and didn't bring him in fast enough.

  Carey: 28:14

  And

  Jennifer: 28:15

  you can't take him to shows anymore, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't make a fantastic breeder. So, I guess we're ready for winter now. Huh?

  Carey: 28:25

  We've done a lot of talking about it. I'm off the week of Thanksgiving and yeah, I'm going to finish cleaning out my barn, redoing everything in my barn, getting ready. I've got 12 keep stalls that I'm setting up for the birds. So when it does get down into the teens or whatever, I can bring Houdini and all the other ones with the big combs and waddles in. And yeah, I have running water in my barn now, so I'm going to have to insulate the pipe that goes across the ground. And no, I'm not ready yet, but I know what I need to do.

  Jennifer: 29:01

  Yeah, it's coming. Fix it now, make it easier then. Alrighty, see you guys next week.

  Carey: 29:09

  Have a good one. Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

Buff Orpingtons with Ross Harrington

Jennifer’s favorite! The buff Orpington, the friendliest breed of chicken, but I may be biased…. Find out what we look for in a great bird.

THE buff Orpington

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.

  0:16

  Mhm.

  Jennifer: 0:23

  Welcome, poultry nerds. We're here today with Ross Harrington, and he raises buff orpingtons. So welcome Ross, how are you?

  Ross: 0:32

  Pretty good, thank you.

  Jennifer: 0:34

  How long have you been racing Buff Orpingtons?

  Ross: 0:37

  I got pretty serious with the buffs in the last five years. I've always had some running around, but I doubled down about five years ago and really started focusing on them and got rid of some other stuff. So they could be the main focus chicken wise.

  Jennifer: 0:55

  Yeah, you can only focus on a couple things at a time, can't you?

  Ross: 0:59

  Chickens for sure. They take up a lot of space.

  Jennifer: 1:02

  Yep. We try to help people get started with birds. And when I tell people that it takes so much space to just breed one breed well, I don't know that they really understand. So tell us how many breeding groups you have and how much space they take up.

  Ross: 1:20

  I try to run three breeding groups. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. It ends up being a little bit more, a little bit less. I like to put one male over two to four females and I mainly just track off of the males. All the females are usually pretty closely related. And then just try to hatch as many as I can out of each pen. Some years it's great. Some years it's not. Just depends on the gods.

  Jennifer: 1:49

  Depends on the weather, depends on your time.

  Ross: 1:52

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 1:53

  Incubators.

  Ross: 1:57

  Oh gosh, yeah. And we live down here in Tornado Alley, so that's about the time that we're trying to hatch, and sometimes you'll have one ripped through and won't have power for a little while. Yeah.

  Jennifer: 2:10

  So your birds so let's explain the difference between standard bred and utility birds.

  Ross: 2:18

  Yeah I would say the utility birds are great for people just looking for something pretty in their backyard. They generally don't have the size, the body capacity, the quality of feather that we're looking for, and something that we would breed to a standard. And in the standard Orpingtons, I think, especially in the buffs, the biggest thing is of course size, but we also want them to have the feather quality. And that's the biggest issue in me or in my buffs is the females don't always have that nice wide thick feather. But they are overall just a much larger, heavier bird. And I would say they're maybe not as productive as your utility type strains.

  Jennifer: 3:04

  Yeah. If you're just looking for egg layers, I would not get birds from us.

  Ross: 3:10

  No, you'll be so disappointed.

  Carey: 3:11

  No, cause like I have some reds and I have some standard reds and my production reds lay significantly more eggs than my standard reds.

  Ross: 3:23

  Yeah. And that seems to be the common theme. Those production birds are they're bred to produce. And that is, they're bred to produce eggs.

  Jennifer: 3:32

  Yep, and then the size difference, I still have two of my original hatchery birds out there. They've got to be nine, ten years old at this point. But they just keep coming back. Clocking along. We're still laying eggs too. But they're probably four, maybe five pounds. Yeah.

  Ross: 3:51

  They're not real big, but they do live a long time. Those production birds, they live forever.

  Jennifer: 3:56

  And then the standard hens, they're going to be more like eight to 10 pounds. Right?

  Ross: 4:02

  Ideally. Yeah. A 10 pounds for a female is probably going to be a little bit too heavy, but I don't see many people bringing scales, so I wouldn't worry too much about weight.

  Jennifer: 4:14

  We're not going to get into that conversation.

  Carey: 4:18

  If your buff is a little fluffy, but she looks pretty, you'll be alright. It'll be just fine.

  Jennifer: 4:24

  I hear a lot about the skirt of the bird. So can you explain to people what they're, what we're talking about?

  Ross: 4:31

  Yeah, so that skirt is what's covering the hawk. And ideally we don't want it to cover the shank, but Sometimes it does. That skirt is gonna just come right around there about the hock. And it is to cover the hock, but it is not supposed to cover the shank in full. It does sometimes. It's the least of my concerns.

  Jennifer: 4:54

  But there is a rule, a two inch rule, right?

  Ross: 4:58

  Allegedly.

  Jennifer: 4:59

  Allegedly, sometimes it's there. Sometimes it's not.

  Ross: 5:02

  Yeah, it's like those scales. They're not walking around with the tape measure either.

  Carey: 5:06

  Depends on the judge. That's right.

  Jennifer: 5:09

  All right. Let's see. Now, Orpington's come in Bantam and Largefowl. Both of us raised Largefowl.

  Ross: 5:16

  Yes.

  Jennifer: 5:18

  Have you seen the little Banning Orpingtons?

  Ross: 5:20

  Yeah. A friend of mine actually just picked up some Bannum Buffs and they're pretty cool. They look great.

  Jennifer: 5:25

  They look, but they're so tiny.

  Carey: 5:28

  Are they smaller than the production ones?

  Jennifer: 5:31

  Yeah,

  Ross: 5:31

  they're smaller, but they're really wide and they feel like a bowling ball in your hand.

  Jennifer: 5:37

  If you can't see their feet, they almost look like a coach in

  Ross: 5:40

  a little

  Jennifer: 5:40

  bit. All right. Let's see. So we both raised Buff and they have a whitish pinkish skin. Do all the Orpington plumage colors have white, pink skin?

  Ross: 5:54

  They're supposed to have white skin. And then of course in the blacks you'll have the Melanizer gene at play. But they're to have white skin too. But their shanks and their beaks are going to be black.

  Jennifer: 6:06

  And a single comb.

  Ross: 6:08

  Single comb, five points, medium size.

  Jennifer: 6:13

  A light brown egg.

  Ross: 6:15

  Yeah, do yours not lay pink eggs? Mine lay pink eggs.

  Jennifer: 6:19

  No, I don't have Easter Eggers. I

  Carey: 6:23

  knew that

  Jennifer: 6:27

  was coming. You get pink eggs, huh?

  Ross: 6:32

  Yeah, I'll just send you a picture. Mine are pink.

  Jennifer: 6:35

  Interesting.

  Ross: 6:36

  Consistently. We have two

  Jennifer: 6:38

  different lines of birds. That's

  Ross: 6:40

  cool.

  Jennifer: 6:40

  Yours are fluffier than mine. How about, let's talk about the differences between the standard bred and the English Orpingtons. And yeah, so there,

  Ross: 6:52

  of course they definitely, they're all under the English class. And if you want an English looking bird, then you'll have to breed it to the English standard. But for the American standard, They're not supposed to be as fluffy, as high tailed. The main thing is those English type birds have really high tails and they're just really fluffy. The American birds, the American Orpington is going to be a tighter feathered bird, a little longer back than a much lower tail. Those are the main differences.

  Jennifer: 7:25

  Yep. And your temperament. No, I have never had a mean Orpington. Have you?

  Ross: 7:30

  Never.

  Jennifer: 7:32

  No, they

  Ross: 7:33

  require very little handling to be tame.

  Jennifer: 7:36

  I think

  Ross: 7:37

  they hatch tame, honestly.

  Jennifer: 7:39

  Yeah. They're pretty much big babies.

  Carey: 7:41

  Yeah. When you're a chicken and you weigh 10 pounds, you really can't move around fast enough to be aggressive.

  Ross: 7:49

  No, they're never mean. I don't have any any issues with picking as babies or anything. They're just tame. Really docile birds.

  Jennifer: 7:58

  So one of my big cock birds, he's probably, I haven't weighed him in a while, but last time I did he was almost 14 pounds and he's about as big as, he's bigger than some of my turkey hens and my four year old grandson was helping me feed one day and he was going in and out of all of the coops grabbing the water buckets for me. And I told him, of course, the Cochins, I have the two cock birds and the Cochins are kind of jerks. And so he doesn't go in there. And so he was going and he was running around the corner and JC is the big cock bird and he was standing there. And he's about eye level with Derek and Derek just comes to a complete stop and just looks at him through the gate, like eye to eye with JC. And he just turned around and he goes, this one's all yours, grandma. I ain't going in there.

  Carey: 8:49

  That's hilarious. That's funny.

  Jennifer: 8:53

  Yeah, but they're big birds, but they are no problem sending him in there because he wouldn't hurt him at all.

  Ross: 8:59

  Yeah they're so tame and I really think that Orpingtons are a great bird for kids, for people just wanting to get into the hobby or even just backyard people. They're really easy going.

  Jennifer: 9:11

  So let's talk about some defects and like what you look for. Do you start culling straight out of the hatcher, straight out of the brooder? When do you start?

  Ross: 9:20

  I don't, unless they have sprigs, I don't cull, I don't cull anything until it's about six months old. Obviously sprigs, crooked toes, that's all going to get culled pretty early, but everything else they get to grow up and then at six months I'll start to evaluate type, color, stuff like that.

  Jennifer: 9:38

  Okay, so explain sprigs to people who don't know what they are and stuff.

  Ross: 9:42

  So a sprig sometimes is so small you really, you have to feel it. So if you run your hands down each side of their comb, anything that's sticking out is basically what I consider a sprig. Some of them are big very visible, and some of them are super tiny.

  Jennifer: 9:58

  And a stub?

  Ross: 10:01

  Stubs are going to be on their feet or in between their toes. It's just a feather or multiple feathers, clusters of feathers, anything like that. I generally don't tolerate.

  Jennifer: 10:13

  Yeah, those don't, especially the sprigs. Definitely just cull those out. Yep. That is a huge genetic issue later down the road, right?

  Ross: 10:23

  Yes, do not tolerate it.

  Jennifer: 10:25

  Yeah. Alright, and then at six months, what do you start looking for?

  Ross: 10:31

  Length of back is something I've been trying to focus on more the past couple years. And a more forward breast in my males. My males don't have enough breast. They don't have enough back length. We're getting there, making some progress. But that, those are the main things at six months is really looking at length of back and a big forward breast.

  Jennifer: 10:55

  Because they're considered dual purpose. We eat them.

  Ross: 10:58

  They're

  Jennifer: 10:58

  egg layers. So you want them to be full in the chest.

  Ross: 11:02

  Yes, want a big full breast. They're supposed to look good on a table or out in the yard.

  Jennifer: 11:06

  Yeah, they're not these modern game birds, they're like little barbies standing there and put them on a shish kebab or something

  Carey: 11:14

  Nope, I like this. It's not a table jumper

  Jennifer: 11:17

  Huh?

  Carey: 11:17

  Not a table jumper.

  Jennifer: 11:19

  No, oh those little saramas Yeah those are my bad birds would eat those

  Carey: 11:25

  I like watching them at shows. I mean because some of those people they get really into that And I just they do get into

  Ross: 11:32

  it

  Jennifer: 11:33

  All right, how about feed? Do you do anything special for the Orpingtons?

  Ross: 11:37

  No everybody here eats the exact same thing. Luckily, my local feed store is now carrying Kombach, so I just switched to that, but everybody eats the same thing.

  Jennifer: 11:48

  Since you just switched over to it, do you have any initial observations?

  Ross: 11:53

  They love it. That it's, they really like the Kombach. I haven't had anybody turn that, their cups are clean every day. They're finishing it up.

  Jennifer: 12:04

  Yeah. I really like it too. Oh, let's see. What advice would you have for anybody wanting to get started breeding and showing?

  Ross: 12:13

  If you want to get started breeding and showing obviously by standard, read it, learn it, know it try to create a mental image. Okay. Talk to breeders who are consistently, every year, producing the type of bird that, the type of bird that you are mentally picturing whenever you read the standard. And try to buy the best stock that you can afford. Really good Orpingtons are not cheap and there's a reason they're not cheap because it takes a lot to get them. Sorry, my computer has decided to change my lighting up. The best stock you can afford and get it from a breeder who It's consistently producing really top notch birds. Ridgeview Farms, they sell really good Orpingtons every year, and they're consistently producing really good birds. That's what I would look for. If I was going to start with Orpingtons over, I would go look for somebody who is consistently producing the type of bird that you can mentally picture whenever you read the standards.

  Jennifer: 13:18

  Now, how do you go about finding those people? That'll be the next question people ask.

  Ross: 13:23

  Facebook is honestly, as much as we all like to hate it, it is the best way to find stuff. And then of course the Orpington Club, the United Orpington Club has a breeders directory and I think that's a fabulous resource as well.

  Jennifer: 13:38

  Do you sell?

  Ross: 13:40

  I have sold one pair of buffs since I started breeding them. And that's it. I call hard. I call really hard.

  Jennifer: 13:49

  Yeah. So that's the same with me. I just, we just eat them. If somebody calls and says they want one, I'll say I got this one here. Take it or leave it. Cause it's going in the pot if you're not taking it. But I don't advertise. And most of the time it's just somebody wanting a big bird to increase their size of their stock that they had at home.

  Ross: 14:12

  Yeah, and I think that's always important, too is just, it never hurts to ask. If you need something and somebody has it, the worst they're gonna say is no.

  Jennifer: 14:21

  And if we said, yeah, we'll call you back later, give me a month, don't hesitate to hit us back in a month because we probably won't call you back.

  Ross: 14:28

  I have definitely forgotten. Please remind me.

  Jennifer: 14:32

  We don't keep lists. I tried lists years ago and it just doesn't work.

  Ross: 14:37

  Yeah, and I'll sell hatching eggs if I've got something extra every now and then. And I think that's another great way to get started. Especially if you can purchase out of their, the exact breeding pens they're breeding from.

  Jennifer: 14:49

  Not everybody

  Ross: 14:50

  offers hatching eggs.

  Jennifer: 14:51

  That leads me to another question. So do you trim in order to increase your fertility?

  Ross: 14:56

  I do trim, yeah. About, I just take my fist and then trim around it and make a hole about yay big.

  Jennifer: 15:05

  And then you have to wait for the molt for that to grow back. Yep. Yep. All right. Orpingtons are easy because they're so docile. They're just there. They're so pretty. You don't really have to do a whole lot. So it doesn't really require a huge, long, drawn out conversation.

  Ross: 15:21

  No, they're a really easy, straightforward breed. Long as you really pay attention to the details, you can't really go wrong with. No,

  Jennifer: 15:28

  Now we both raised buffs and and that's a color, not a breed for everybody who will type that out. Orpington's also come in black, white, blue, black,

  Ross: 15:41

  white, blue and buff.

  Jennifer: 15:42

  Yep. That's the APA standards, but you can get other colors like lavender. Yeah, not

  Ross: 15:49

  recognized. And I honestly don't think there's enough people working on them to get them recognized. They have a feather shredding gene that is really hard to recognize.

  Jennifer: 15:58

  Do you know anybody that has a lavender line that doesn't have the shredder gene? I don't either. Yeah. No, self believes are hard. I don't know anybody either. All righty thanks for joining us today to talk about Orpington's.

  Ross: 16:15

  Absolutely. We can go in depth on them, but that's a pretty good brief overview.

  Jennifer: 16:20

  Yes, that's exactly what we needed.

  Ross: 16:23

  Yep.

  Jennifer: 16:24

  All right. We'll talk to you soon.

  Ross: 16:26

  All right. Thank you.

  Carey: 16:28

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds@gmail.com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone. Mhm.

Aaron Goes to Quail Con

Every year at Labor Day, Quail Con in Ohio takes place. Aaron makes the trek to be an event speaker. This year, he was so popular, he received loads of follow up questions. He shares about his experience and the follow ups.

Aaron of Guidroz Family Farm

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Kerry Blackman, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant. And we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.

  Jennifer: 0:24

  Hello, Poultry Nerds. We are here again with Aaron Guidroz from Guidroz's Family Farms. Welcome, Aaron.

  Carey: 0:32

  Hello.

  Jennifer: 0:33

  And he has given a speech on maybe how to make a few dollars with quail. So we are going to ask him a bunch of questions and he's going to explain to us how we can be profitable with our quail.

  Aaron: 0:46

  Yeah. How

  Jennifer: 0:46

  you doing?

  Aaron: 0:48

  It's it's actually cool in the south today.

  Jennifer: 0:51

  Yes.

  Carey: 0:53

  I was very happy about that this morning. Yeah.

  Jennifer: 0:57

  So tell us about your farm and how you make a profit with your quail.

  Aaron: 1:01

  So my farm is in South Louisiana. We are very hot in the summer, short winters. And years ago, my wife and I decided we wanted to start raising a bunch of animals for self sufficiency. We were young teenagers at the time. 15, 20 years ago, a long time ago

  Jennifer: 1:25

  yesterday.

  Aaron: 1:26

  Yeah. Yesterday. Yeah. So we always raised since we got married, we always raised meat for profit, primarily chickens and quail and rabbits, and we drifted towards the, it was costing us a ton of money and feed and weren't really looking to sell anything. But we were just surviving. We were putting our money into our own feed and using our own meat to put food on the table. Then right around when we started selling before COVID, it's like 2018, 2019. We would start to sell and just help supplement the feed costs. Because feed costs was outrageous. It's worse now. I thought it was bad in 2018. I look at it now, wish I could pay 2018 prices. Then I had this little little pandemic called COVID that came around. And that's where it really took off for us. Cause we stayed small scale. I would say then people were just reaching out. People want to get closer to the food, so we always had a small garden, few animals probably 50 quail, 100 quail cycle back and forth just a few just a few. We like to eat in the South, recommending one, one and a half quail per person for a meal that's a warm up, that's like the ratio for an appetizer.

  Jennifer: 2:57

  Yeah,

  Aaron: 2:59

  I'm eating the 1st 2 that's cooked while waiting for the rest of them to be done. So we, we found that the main for poultry quail. And rabbits and vegetables during that time. And people were just looking for knowledge. And we spent a lot of time educating people, a lot of time selling our products, but also educating the people how to be more self sufficient with that stuff. And I'm a dreamer. I'm a big dreamer. I'll lay down in bed at night and that's when the light bulb goes on. And, my wife, she's trying to go to sleep and I'm like, writing down things trying to talk to her and she's just telling me he just, just let's talk about in the morning, but I won't feel the same way in the morning. So I'm like, what if. You could stop working and we could just form full time. And she was like, that won't be possible. She said, we're not even paying for the feed right now. So I said I'll get us there. So we branched out more into coyotes. I backed off of the chickens and the rabbits and the other stuff and kind of focused on the quail and developing good breeding programs, sourcing some new stock to expand and had a lot of trials and errors, a lot of errors with it. But I got to the point where we were paying for the feed and I said, we're ready. You could quit your job and she's no, we're not there yet. We've got to do it consistently. So I made probably the worst mistake anyone can make getting into coil is I expanded to be like, I'm talking about like way to be you went from 100 to 1000. Yeah, basically. So I'm like, what am I going to do with all these things? I have way too many. What am I do now? We're back to paying for feed. We're still selling. And then I just looked at different ways to sell what I had already had the quail. What do I do with it? I'm feeding these things. We can't eat all of them regardless of how much I like to eat them. We can only put so much in the freezer. We can only eat so much so I started sat down started writing down different ways where I can't sell them because if you're gonna sell just a hatching egg you probably won't be so profitable because it's seasonal it goes up and down and I mean It's just, to me, that's not the biggest part of profit on the quail. So like in my, I'll give you a reference and just use that as a reference. In my area, we sell a live, like breeding age quail laying for 5 a piece. That's when adult goes forward. It's the market. I play around with it. I'll go up to six here and there. I'll go down to four in bulk, but that five is mine. So what I started doing is When I butcher, I'll save different parts of the quail, I'll save the feet, make jewelry, feathers, make jewelry with it. Helps add to the, your profit. For quail specifically, I found, especially here lately, the last 12 to 18 months, my biggest money maker is quail and making dog treats with quail. So I'll take that 5 quail. That I'm selling for an adult, cut the wings off, cut the feet off, and I'll dehydrate those. I skin the bird, take the innards out, grind the entire quail and make quail jerky for dog treats. I'll take the skull and I'll put them in with my darkling beetles and the darkling beetles clear the skull, sell the skulls online for different crafting and oddity stuffs whatever to do with it. I don't say with quail skull, it's a profit. Like I'll sell them for 50 cents a piece. want to pay for. Yeah, 0. 50 a piece. I'm going to feed it to the pigs if I don't. So it's 0. 50 just like the wings I'll get I'll sell them for cheap, but I sell them in bulk. Like 2. 50 a pair. Would throw them to the pigs anyway. It's, so I took that 5 quail and I turned it into about 11. 50 quail with a little work involved, but. What else are you going to do with your time if you're a farmer? All farmers have spare time, right?

  Jennifer: 7:30

  Oh yeah, we're not doing anything.

  Aaron: 7:32

  Yeah. Just that there's so many different avenues of profiting with quail other than selling live birds and selling eggs. And Anybody, excuse me, anybody who's ever shipped an egg knows the pain of you collecting eggs. You're checking eggs for defects, weighing eggs, you're loading eggs in foam shippers if you ship them properly.

  Jennifer: 8:01

  Yes.

  Aaron: 8:01

  A lot of time involved and you're really not profiting very much off of a single egg. That's assuming you sell every egg.

  Carey: 8:10

  True. They don't take into consideration the ones that you wind up tossing to the pigs because they sit there too long or, whatever takes them away. Yeah.

  Jennifer: 8:23

  Yeah, you have to have other outlets. You can't just depend on hatching eggs or selling live adult birds. It won't work.

  Aaron: 8:32

  On a small scale. If you have 25, 30 quail and you're going to hatch, 50 at a time, your local area, you probably couldn't do well selling those small groups. But once you cross a hundred mark they'll eat your profit with feeding.

  Jennifer: 8:47

  You and I both deal in the thousands probably, right?

  Aaron: 8:50

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 8:51

  Yeah. We both deal in the thousands. Yeah. So hatching eggs is probably what I'm known for, but that is really, at this point, probably not even the bulk of my businesS. I'm with you.

  Aaron: 9:03

  I debate every now and then of getting out of hatching eggs and I'll be honest and tell you the only reason I still do hatching eggs is the interaction with people. I truly enjoy hearing everyone's success stories and watching them, start out from an egg, especially with young ones and that, that's kinda, that's a good driving force for me is hearing those stories and seeing those experiences. I get excited when, Facebook groups, that, it's hatch day, their first hatch and everybody's so excited. Like it's not even my eggs and I'm still excited for them. I locked down 1200 eggs last night and I was still excited to candle them and I'll still get excited when it's time to move them from the incubator to the brooder.

  Jennifer: 9:48

  Yeah. They're still cute after. I don't even know how many we've hatched at this point, but they're still cute and I still like to watch them.

  Carey: 9:56

  The little sound the little chirp. Yesterday I went down to go Into my chicken yard and feed my chickens, which I know we're talking about quail, but I hear an abnormal chirp. I didn't even realize I had a broody hen in this other pen. I guess she was sneaking and sitting, but she had about six or seven of them pop out from underneath her when they heard me. That sound though, I think that's how you get victimized when you go to a tractor supply. Is you walk in the door and you hear, ch. And it's that little chirping sound and it's just come get me, take me home.

  Aaron: 10:29

  It's amazing. And like to me, quail are only really cute when they are first hatched or they're in the pot.

  Jennifer: 10:38

  Aww, you're such a man. I was moving Celadons today, and I was looking at them, and some of them have just the prettiest shaped heads. I pretty much like the Rosettas, those are my favorite. And their heads just seem so dainty to me, so I always like moving them. Because their face is just pretty.

  Aaron: 11:00

  I enjoy sorting birds, and the quail, really for me is It's great because I like projects and, I like to track things and it's a fast turnaround, like a breeding project, faster than a chicken,

  Jennifer: 11:17

  Being a nerd is what you're saying.

  Aaron: 11:19

  Yeah, pretty much. It's fun and it keeps you involved because everything's moving so fast compared to chickens or turkeys or, geese and stuff. This is. It says moving at light speed, your breeding program. So that's what gets me, keeps me involved with quail, like for colors. Cause if I probably have just jumbo browns, if it was just for me. Jumbo browns and jumbo whites. I like my whites.

  Jennifer: 11:49

  So what are some of the questions that you got after your last big speaking engagement that you did about this?

  Aaron: 11:56

  So I've had numerous questions and One of the probably most important ones would be, where do I start? And for different people, it's a different starting point. What is your background? Cause, it's fancy. It's flashy seeing, big farms like Bryant's Roost, being successful. And so people want to thrive on that. And they want to experience that. Always say, start small, like you could, your profit will be small, but your cost will be small and never fall in the trap of making a loan to get started.

  Jennifer: 12:39

  No, don't do that.

  Aaron: 12:40

  Start small. Start what you can.

  Carey: 12:43

  I did. I loan. Okay. So anytime I use my American Express to buy Jack, I call it loaning myself money. But that's how I, that's how I got my first incubator or my big incubator. And that's how I got my first two racks, but they paid for them. Those chicks that came out of that incubator and it paid for a pretty quick And a lot of interest.

  Aaron: 13:09

  That would be considered investing in yourself I'm talking like I had one person that reached out that They were getting out of coil and they had made a 25, 000 loan to buy equipment. Oh Did they buy the whole barn and everything? They bought a bunch of cages, the born incubators, and they were going to just, real ambitious. They were just going to do it. And they, it didn't work. And they sold a hatching eggs. You've got a sale. Oh, absolutely. Because the rent man comes due on the 1st, every month, so if you're having a rough month, you're like, with the times coming in the South, I'll still ship eggs during the winter, but like north of Tennessee, I'm not going to ship eggs, just if it's frozen, I'm not going to do it.

  Jennifer: 14:05

  Let me catch my breath after what you just said. But if you've been in this for more than, I don't know, say, 2 years, you're going to see people do that in January, February, March, maybe even April where they want to come in and take over and make these big farms and. No, that's, I'm not going to say it can't work, but it's the hardest probably way to do it.

  Carey: 14:32

  If you're getting started in January, February, March, you're like six months too late.

  Jennifer: 14:38

  Yeah.

  Aaron: 14:39

  Yeah. And I find in my area, it's more in the January, February, March starters, it's, they're looking for live birds. They want adults. They want

  Jennifer: 14:49

  adults at hatching egg prices.

  Carey: 14:52

  Yeah. Oh, you have adults, you have layers. I give you$2

  Jennifer: 14:58

  I know, right?

  Carey: 14:59

  It, it ain't more than that. I don't feed cheap feed, sorry. Yeah.

  Jennifer: 15:03

  Yeah.

  Aaron: 15:04

  And feed costs I imagine is, will be going up soon again.

  Jennifer: 15:09

  Oh, yeah. Because a lot of the crops have been lost. Yeah. Yeah. But also keep in mind that you're, you are paying for your hatching egg when you order them, but you're also paying for the farmers. infrastructure and winterizing and breeding time and there's so much more behind that hatching egg, but that's I don't know what 10 percent of the process. Maybe the egg is

  Carey: 15:33

  well, there's 1 person apparently took a 25, 000 loan to get to that hatching egg. That's what all goes into it. Not that much. So that was excessive.

  Aaron: 15:46

  I don't know. And so right now we get into government grant application season, I call it. So you'll start seeing advertisements for that. And they make it sound pretty, they put a pretty label of a grant on it and it's just. A loan. It's an ag loan.

  Jennifer: 16:04

  Okay.

  Aaron: 16:05

  You still have to pay it back. My first, once I, like, when I formed my actual business, my first year, I put every dollar that I made from profit and I just put it aside and I paid for all the expenses out of pocket. That way I could give my company a chance to survive and that was my nest egg for my company. And, cause As wild and free as I may seem. I like stability and I'm, I really don't know just well to change. That's why I like animals because they just, a quail is just going to quail. A chicken is just going to chicken. This over the past few months, I downsized on chickens drastically. I have white American breasts and silkies and that is it.

  Jennifer: 16:55

  It seems that is a pattern that's going around because I'm moving my coachings on out of here. Did you get

  Aaron: 17:01

  rid of your emates? I don't have the emu's. They don't.

  Jennifer: 17:06

  Those are pets.

  Aaron: 17:07

  Yeah, those are pets. Alright, so

  Jennifer: 17:11

  that's a pattern. We're moving the Cochins on out and the American Breasts have come in. Yeah.

  Aaron: 17:16

  Yeah, I got rid of my turkeys. All of them.

  Jennifer: 17:19

  Oh, no. They're the fun.

  Aaron: 17:22

  Yeah. I added a few things. I won't release it here, but I added a few things. Some smaller birds, but I did add more.

  Jennifer: 17:30

  Do you still have rabbits? You mentioned rabbits.

  Aaron: 17:32

  Yeah. So I went from 95 rabbits, roughly, give or take, and then I completely got rid of them. And this spring I added five more rabbits.

  Jennifer: 17:42

  Gotcha. When I started in quail, I actually started with rabbit cages that I found on Craigslist, and just to see if it was something that I was going to quail are very different from pretty much anything else. They are 100 percent reliant on you. It's not like throwing a cow out in the field, and It took me about, I don't know, 20 minutes to decide that quail were for me. And it took me about 45 seconds to decide rabbits were not for me. I didn't like rabbits one bit from the beginning. Didn't like them. Don't like to eat them. Don't want anything to do with them. But quail, it was a pretty much an instantaneous thing. And so we kept the rabbit cages long enough for me to decide. What kind of cages that I wanted to go with. And those are going to be dependent on your setup. My setup is 100 percent inside, enclosed in a climate control barn. At this point. So it wouldn't be suitable for somebody who wanted to keep quail outside. But the other thing is rabbit cages are really easy to buy and sell on Craigslist. Used. Incredibly easy to buy and sell on Craigslist.

  Aaron: 19:01

  Yeah, definitely. Like I've built so my first one, I use the rabbit hutch because my wife always raised rabbits and I use the rabbit hutch for my first quail and I was like, I think I'll build one. And of course I built it wrong and

  Jennifer: 19:19

  I

  Aaron: 19:20

  just lived with it and built another one and built another one and just improved on my design. Over the years, and then I had stumbled across the attorney's corner video on on Terry's cage. When I saw those oil pans, I was like, thi this is gonna change my life, because I was, use

  Jennifer: 19:43

  them,

  Aaron: 19:43

  I was like doing cardboard under it and like I would just throw the whole cardboard away and it was wasteful and I was like, man, if they had something like, and I never thought about it, that changed my life when I seen that.

  Jennifer: 19:56

  I have my youngest son works at one of the big name auto chains suppliers. So every time, every year when he comes in for Thanksgiving, I make him make a trip to the local store and stock up for the year. Cause they do rest through, they're not. indestructible. Yeah. So yeah you might get a year out of them, but for the price, it's fine.

  Aaron: 20:20

  I find coating them with like Rhino lining will extend it to three or four years.

  Jennifer: 20:25

  Oh, nifty. Then he'll be buying me one of those, some of that, while he's at the store this year.

  Aaron: 20:30

  Yeah, you get in the spray can or the gallon can any kind of bed liner. Protected. I have mostly Wynola ranch cages now, a ton of them. I have a bunch I've got to assemble.

  Jennifer: 20:42

  Can you still scrape it with a putty knife?

  Aaron: 20:44

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 20:45

  Okay, because I just buy plastic, put knives because it seems like you lose'em all the time. I don't know what happens to'em. It's like I lose

  Aaron: 20:53

  put knives and feed scoopers daily. Where? Like where do they go?

  Jennifer: 20:59

  I don't lose feed scoopers. They're too expensive. But I lose put knives,

  Aaron: 21:04

  listen I feed scoopers, put knives and butterfly nets I buy in bulk.

  Jennifer: 21:11

  Yeah. You can't have quail without butterfly nets.

  Aaron: 21:14

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 21:14

  The feed scoopers I hang up now all my feet is kept on like one of those trolleys. Like you see a dollar general literally because mine came from dollar general. And I just hang them over the end horizontals on the uprights. They just hang there, but I will tell you, do you remember when we were kids and you went to pizza hut and they had the hard plastic pictures. Yeah. Okay. Those handles on those pictures are not closed at the bottom. So they hang on stuff too. Just like the feed scoops. So I go through a lot of those.

  Carey: 21:47

  I find a place where I can get some of those. Cause last time I was at your place, I saw that and I was like. I could get that in the small little tray in the front of the coil cages and then I could do the waitress does when she wants to put ice in the cup. I turn it sideways and put it in the trough out for the chickens.

  Jennifer: 22:06

  Yeah, we're always scouring the clearance sections at Kroger's or whatever. Looking for that kind of stuff. We're not looking for anything for the house. We're looking for stuff for the barn.

  Carey: 22:16

  Is what it is.

  Jennifer: 22:18

  So your biggest question after the fact was, how do you get started? And the answer is small.

  Aaron: 22:23

  Yeah start small source from source stock from a reputable breeder, and that'll save you a year of work minimum, I do also recommend if you're going to go self sufficiency route, Go local. If not fine, this is my phone was ringing, find someone close to you. If you're looking just for self sufficiency, if you want a good breeding stock and you want to develop a good brand and reach out to someone that's reputable and face Facebook doesn't tell many lies. Most of it's not true, but it doesn't tell many lies. If you. Put somebody's name out there and ask about them, you'll get answers, definitely check on that. Cause you have to start from somewhere. And if you start from somebody who's knowledgeable, who can assist you, it'll save a lot of pain.

  Jennifer: 23:14

  Yes.

  Aaron: 23:15

  Especially going into winter time right now. So if you're considering going now, brooding in the winter time can be hard depending your location. Yeah. You got to be prepared for that, especially if you've never done it before. It's, in the summertime, then it's too hot. You have and here in the South, you have probably eight weeks of perfect, conditions to raise animals. And it's usually spread across the entire year, those eight weeks.

  Jennifer: 23:44

  I agree.

  Aaron: 23:45

  And another big thing I had gotten asked was how do you market your stuff? How do you advertise? That's a good one. And that, that one is a really good one. And there's multiple answers for it. What. What are your goals? What are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to market your stuff locally? Are you trying to mark your market your stuff across the country? Definitely across the country MPI P to be able to ship across state lines AI for certain states I don't remember the states off the top of my head for AI Because I fought AI for the while I'm like, I don't need that because I have to pay for it MPI P in Louisiana is free So I'm like AI I have to pay for it. I'm not doing it So now I've got an AI, so now I don't have to, I don't even pay attention, which states require it. I

  Jennifer: 24:39

  have it here in Tennessee. It's all one thing.

  Aaron: 24:41

  If you want to stay local and you're looking for different avenues to sell your quail locally without having to ship farmers markets and be a top one, and you can't tell me your area doesn't have a farmer's market because if they don't, then start one.

  Jennifer: 24:55

  Is

  Aaron: 24:57

  that

  Jennifer: 24:57

  where you started with farmers markets?

  Aaron: 24:59

  I started locally. I live in a very small area, so everybody knows everybody. People are like, hey, go to this guy. He has chickens and coil and rabbits. And one person would tell another person, and then I would do farmers markets. And I would every now and then I would show my face at animal swaps. And it's like that stuff, very profitable even like an animal swap in your area. I would definitely research biosecurity before I would venture off into that. So you have farmers markets, cause most people raising quail or growing vegetables and they're doing other things. They have. Some people even have those chickens. Diversify you want to meet what your customers demands are. You don't want to just, let's say you just, you love jumbo Browns and that's all you're going to raise. What if the people you're trying to sell to don't love Jumbo Browns as much as you? You're not gonna sell them.

  Jennifer: 26:01

  No.

  Aaron: 26:01

  Get it get a feel and I have one person that I'm doing foreign business coaching with right now and he just loves Jumbo Whites. You can't talk him out of anything other than Jumbo Whites. He has Jumbo Whites and white American breasts and that is the meat birds of his life.

  Jennifer: 26:16

  Okay.

  Aaron: 26:18

  And I was like Ricky, not everybody likes jumbo whites. Are you selling just for meat? He's nope, not selling meat. I'm selling pet birds and selling birds for people for self sufficiency. I said, you might want to change that. So I got them with pansies and some pearls and Egyptians. And so now he's selling a ton of quail. People are like. They're looking in his brooder box. He brings around to sell chicks out of and they, the jumbo whites every day. When he comes back from selling him, he has jumbo whites in the brooder box, no other colors, and you just find out what your customer base is looking for and just meet that domain and it's the best way. You can sell more that way. My favorite bird to listen to is the Northern Bobwhite. I don't even sell them. That's my favorite bird to listen to. I like my Jumbo Browns to eat. And for some reason, I like the Pansies to look at. Only as chicks though. And look, I don't like anything with a Routine in it.

  Jennifer: 27:29

  Oh no, come on.

  Aaron: 27:30

  No, personally, I don't like them, but I don't like the

  Carey: 27:35

  red color.

  Jennifer: 27:36

  That's my biggest seller.

  Carey: 27:38

  And being from Louisiana they don't like that crimson red down there.

  Aaron: 27:42

  I'm actually an Alabama fan.

  Carey: 27:45

  I understand that, but your neighbors won't.

  Aaron: 27:49

  Yeah, I have a LSU sign planted in my front yard for my neighbor.

  Jennifer: 27:53

  Yeah. So start small and find out what you can sell locally and where you can sell. Now, I started on Craigslist I haven't been on Craigslist in a long time. It's hit and miss I think now, but that's where I started.

  Aaron: 28:09

  See, we don't really have Craigslist available to us in our area because we're so rural. So like I tried to look up that route. I even for a little while selling hatching eggs on eBay.

  Jennifer: 28:23

  Yep.

  Aaron: 28:23

  When I started looking at all the fees and stuff, that's when I made my website and I got asked about my website, like in my website, it's not fancy. And I said I'm not a web designer. I am a quail farmer.

  Jennifer: 28:39

  I'd say that is what

  Aaron: 28:39

  it is. I'm sure I could do a little bit of research and I watched some YouTube videos and understand how to use Wix better and probably make my website a little bit more flashier. That won't change my quail, So I just invest my time into my product and I like the website because you could just go on the website. You can look at it. If you don't want to buy it, you just keep on scrolling.

  Jennifer: 29:04

  Let me interject here for just a 2nd. If you didn't know that you can put hatching eggs on eBay that you can, but we are not allowed as sellers to tell you to go to our website. Yeah, we do that with. Subliminable. marketing. So look at our profile pictures. So my profile picture is actually my logo and it actually says briansroos. com on it because the eBay computer doesn't see that.

  Carey: 29:36

  And it fits perfect in that circle.

  Jennifer: 29:38

  It does. And then people will message me off of eBay and I'm like, just look at the profile picture because What you're paying for 36 Pharaoh eggs on eBay is 15 percent higher than what you would pay on my website because that's just eBay's fees. Yeah. Yeah. So just, look at those and see if you can't look between the lines at what we're trying to tell you.

  Aaron: 30:03

  And that's what got me away from the eBay selling is I lost that customer interaction and 99. 9 percent of the time. I really do enjoy the customer interaction. You always, you're always going to get a few, I'm very fortunate that I haven't run across too many disgruntled customers, but I really, I do I'm a sucker for, someone needing eggs for their kids, for a hatching project. I'm sending eggs, yeah. As mean as I am, I'm still nice.

  Jennifer: 30:38

  Yep. So what other common questions did you get?

  Aaron: 30:43

  Hang on one second. I'm in the middle of something.

  Jennifer: 30:46

  Alright,

  Aaron: 30:48

  I'm back now.

  Jennifer: 30:49

  Okay, so what other questions did you get from people?

  Aaron: 30:52

  One of them was actually a small one, where the, who do I recommend? I did recommend Brian's Roots.

  Jennifer: 31:00

  No, but thank you.

  Aaron: 31:02

  I'm a, one of my big hitting points on my speech was, You get people to get in and they are looking for to take over the world. And it's you don't need to do that. Just find your SL slice of the pie and be happy with it. What number is your happy number? And, I'm at my happy number, I enjoy doing it. And I also enjoy helping out friends and recommending friends and. It's fun for me. I work full time. This is my hobby and I love it. So it's I recommend people all the time. I enjoy that. I enjoy the friendships formed with Raising Quill, but anyway, enough about me. Another,

  Jennifer: 31:47

  the point was to talk about you and what you really,

  Carey: 31:50

  oh man, yeah, we wanted to find out. How? How was Quail Con?

  Aaron: 31:56

  Quail Con was excellent. I got there the Wednesday and it's like I didn't stop. I landed. I flew up there. We landed and my feet hit the ground. I don't think I stopped until I landed back in New Orleans. It was extremely busy. It was fun. I met so many wonderful faces. I think it was, they had more new people at this one. Compared to ever before, except for the first one. And it was amazing. You got to sit there. We actually, Thursday morning, we butchered a quail for the quail dinner. So my wife got this, my wife and my eight year old got the butcher quail with us for the quail dinner. I didn't usually cook for the quail dinner. I didn't cook this year because I was speaking right at the time that. They were, the cooking needed to start on the Saturday, so I didn't get to cook. I really, I enjoy cooking. It was a great experience. They have I definitely recommend everyone to try going at least one time. You get tour de Cueva, which I didn't even go in there this year. I was just so busy. It just, you get to meet so many people and everyone's a stranger when they walk in the gates there. And they leave just friends. So I like the people watch. I was sitting down in the chair, taking a break, writing down some notes. Had a guy to walk by and they have a raffle. They could win prizes that are donated and got, had a guy to pull out some raffle tickets out of his pocket and a lot of cash fell on the ground in the grass and I was getting ready to get up to grab it and some other guy just walks from across and he grabs and he goes hunt the guy down and give him his money back. What city in the United States you expect to see that happening? In today's age, you don't, someone's just gonna pocket it. They're gonna let him walk a good distance and pocket the money. And we parked in the parking lot, which is the field and I didn't lock my car or, you don't have to worry about none of that stuff there. It's just the same kind of people as we are. It's. It's really fun. I will say one year I'll end up camping with the campers there. They got people to sleep in tents, sleep in their cars, drive in RVs. I'm a little spoiled to air conditioning, I'll be honest. And showers. But it's a good experience. I probably wish they would have an additional day. Just because like I was there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the event was Saturday and Sunday and Monday morning I got on the plane and drove home. It was definitely fun. There's a little biosecurity valve naturally because you're going into the quail barn. You're sanitizing your feet and you're not allowed acting next to the quail, but just to walk in there and hear, I think it's somewhere around 9, 000 birds just going at it, one rooster crows and then they just, they all start. They

  Jennifer: 34:56

  do. I was

  Aaron: 34:57

  going to say, it'll be totally quiet in there until one. Yeah, one starts. So like people that never really been around that, because there was a ton of people there that, they left with their first quail. So it was, it's a good experience to see that kind of stuff. You can buy eggs there too, and then come home with eggs, birds, or anything alive.

  Jennifer: 35:23

  Oh wow.

  Aaron: 35:24

  Had one vendor that was selling 3D printed dragons. It's just, I don't know. Okay. My 8 year old, I think he bought them all. Actually left, so we packed super light to travel and I left with a bunch of clothes in the hotel room that way I had room for his dragons in the bag. And it's so funny because for the raffle, they donated a dragon to be raffled off. He bought all the dragons and he won the dragon in the raffle.

  Jennifer: 35:58

  Oh wow, he was happy.

  Aaron: 36:00

  Yeah, he was super happy because he was very happy.

  Jennifer: 36:05

  Any other advice for anybody wanting to get started on making money with quail?

  Aaron: 36:10

  It's probably one that you see asked at least daily on Facebook.

  Jennifer: 36:15

  Okay.

  Aaron: 36:17

  What do I sell my quail for? What should be my price?

  Carey: 36:20

  I wish, you know what, if I had a dollar for every time I've seen that question, I would not have a job. Yeah.

  Jennifer: 36:30

  I told somebody the other day, because I rarely answer those questions, but my answer was 0 to 25, because it just, it depends on who you are, what you have, what specialty there are, dead, live, what size, there's such a range there.

  Aaron: 36:51

  Yeah, and I always answer that question with another question, and it is, what is your cost?

  Carey: 36:59

  And people like that's what kills me is people don't think about that. When I, people ask me, they say why are you trying to sell me a chicken for 35? The chickens this age and it costs that much to feed it. So I thought that was a good price. Why does it cost so much to feed it? And so there was a time in my life where I actually had the patients where I would calculate the math out for them. But now it's, that's usually the conversation ender.

  Jennifer: 37:33

  So I do see a running theme because most of the larger breeders, we all know each other and a running theme between us is. This is what it costs. And if you don't want to pay it, we have other outlets or we'll just eat it. We don't have to sell them because, I have a multitude of outlets for them and I'm backlogged and have been backlogged pretty much all of 2024. I'm a probably about 600 birds behind right now on order. It is what it is.

  Aaron: 38:06

  Yeah, and it's like the whole pricing thing. I just, I sent him an Excel spreadsheet. This is, if he costs you this much, this is how much it costs you for an egg. This is how much it costs you in electricity. And then you go from there.

  Jennifer: 38:24

  And you won't always make a profit. Profit is in a lot of different ways. Profit is you put some of that in your freezer. You fed your dogs with some of it. You ate it for breakfast in the source of eggs. You fed your pigs. If you're gonna use every bit of it, you've got to account for all of that stuff, too.

  Aaron: 38:43

  Yeah, and you can't get a unrealistic expectation of that you're gonna get rich in, especially in the first year doing this. I don't know anybody who's ever gotten rich off of quail farming, just absolutely rich and just Hey, I'm going to retire quail farming. That just, that doesn't happen. A lot of people think it's possible and it may be, but I don't think you're going to be living this high, fancy lifestyle and being a quail farmer.

  Carey: 39:12

  I know somebody that did a very large amount of business. in quail farming. And that person told me they were running about a 10 percent margin. So if you're getting the idea out there, fellas and ladies to get that 25, 000 loan, just let that 10 percent margin sink in before you go get it.

  Jennifer: 39:37

  And don't, and one thing we didn't mention one of the other breeders that we know, we all know she's selling manure to somebody who wants to compost it all. So every bit of it is sellable. I personally compost it for my own garden. Maybe one day I would have enough. To sell, but I don't foresee that in the next two to three years. That's a lot of

  Aaron: 40:02

  poo.

  Jennifer: 40:03

  Makes my veggies grow really well,

  Aaron: 40:05

  I sell like feed bags of quail manure here and there, but it might only be 20. In the spring or the fall. It's not me at the time. I compost everything for myself.

  Jennifer: 40:16

  Yeah,

  Aaron: 40:17

  basically. And I really don't want to sell it. I don't advertise. It's just more people that reach out and ask for it. And like you, I'm not selling rabbit manure that goes straight into the garden. If I had a way that I could put a conveyor from the rabbit cages to the garden and I wouldn't have to touch it. That would be even better.

  Jennifer: 40:35

  Move the pens over there. The cages.

  Aaron: 40:38

  So I am really crazy about it. My animals stay in the animal yard. The garden is the garden yard. A few weeks ago I moved my goats into the gardens cause we're redoing all the garden beds. I have the raised beds and. I'm redesigning, so we let everything go in the summertime, and I had poison ivy growing in the tomato bed, and I was like, I'm not going to weed all of this stuff, so I used cattle panels, I fenced in the garden area, and turned the goats loose.

  Jennifer: 41:12

  That's the

  Aaron: 41:13

  first time we had animals out of the animal yard and it gave me anxiety.

  Carey: 41:18

  In the winter time, you could put some chickens in a tractor and some rabbits in a tractor. And you wouldn't even have to spread it out at that point in the garden.

  Aaron: 41:32

  I wanted the emus to go out and play in the garden. And so I left the back gate open. The back gate from the animal yard goes into the garden area and the rest was all fenced in. They would not cross the gate. My animals have it nice and made in the animal yard.

  Jennifer: 41:49

  Now, we, in the spring, we wean the piglets and I put them in my breeder pens to rototill up to reseed it. They did a great job. They're really hard on fence that's meant for Birds not really meant for pigs so there was some repairs to do afterwards But they did a fantastic job, and I think we have all raised beds So I have put hog panels up around my raised beds now, and I'm gonna wean the next Set which are due in about a month or so I'm gonna put them in the garden to turn that over so yeah.

  Aaron: 42:27

  Yeah, it just, like for me, my animal yard, if you're passing in front of my house, you do not know I have animals. There's no sign of any animals around.

  Jennifer: 42:38

  And

  Aaron: 42:40

  you walk in, the fenced in area, and then you see animals everywhere. Looks like Jurassic Park

  Jennifer: 42:48

  sometimes. Yep. Any last words for any advice for anybody?

  Aaron: 42:53

  Just keep on quailing. Don't get discouraged. And you have to, and I find myself every now and then needing to get back to my roots and realize what I started doing it for. And every once in a while people just need to reset.

  Jennifer: 43:10

  Yeah, I did it this year

  Carey: 43:12

  too. I'm redoing the entire inside of my barn. And I am, I'm doing some resets too. All right. Aaron, I appreciate you coming on. Yep. Thanks for having me. How does everybody get in touch with you?

  Aaron: 43:31

  Facebook or my website.

  Jennifer: 43:34

  There you go. Ra family farm.com.

  Aaron: 43:38

  Dot com? Yes.

  Jennifer: 43:39

  Yep. All right. Cool.

  Aaron: 43:40

  Same thing on Facebook. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, find it somewhere and get you. I had some stranger I met at QuailCon. I'll bore you with one last story. Never met the man before. And I'll make sure I'll send him this. He's from Georgia. He's a Bulldog fan, but we became friends. And he asked me when I would start doing YouTube live streams. I said once I hit 500 subscribers, I'll consider it. So it is his mission to get me 500 subscribers. And I think I had 285 at the time. And I think I'm like 485 right now.

  Jennifer: 44:19

  Oh no, you're going to have to start

  Aaron: 44:22

  working. Yeah, that's hilarious. Yeah, so I might have to, Shannon, I might have to start preparing for live streams.

  Jennifer: 44:33

  All right. That sounds good.

  Carey: 44:35

  Sounds good. Yeah,

  Aaron: 44:37

  y'all have a good one.

Poultry Nerds Q&A

We asked you for topics and suggestions and we answered! We had so much fun in this episode and giggled a few times. If y’all need to know or have suggestions for shows, let us know!

www.PoultryNerds.com Q&A

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.

  0:16

  Mhm.

  Carey: 0:23

  Good Morning,. Today, we're going to make an episode that is geared towards you, the listener. We went back and we looked on our social media and our Facebook direct messages and all that good stuff. And a lot of the questions that you guys have sent us over the last couple of months, we decided to do a podcast because a lot of people they want to ask questions, but they don't want to ask questions or whatever. So we're just going to throw these questions that we got out there today. And we're going to give our best, best shot at an answer to help you guys out. All right.

  Jennifer: 1:01

  We're going to do rapid fire.

  Carey: 1:03

  I don't know that rapid fire would work on some of these. Cause some of these, the answers a little probably should be in depth, but we'll do the best we can.

  Jennifer: 1:15

  All right. Sounds good. Let's go.

  Carey: 1:17

  All right. What is the best way to ship hatching eggs?

  Jennifer: 1:21

  Egg foam and double box always. Secure those eggs in there tight, and then secure them again.

  Carey: 1:30

  And so like when you pull the little pieces out of the egg foam and put the egg in, then you use those other pieces to go between the two boxes, right?

  Jennifer: 1:38

  Yes, I think the biggest problem, or biggest thing they do wrong, is they put the egg foam in the box, and put the eggs in it, and then put the half inch pads on it, but then they don't fill that empty space. So make sure you fill the empty space so the foam and eggs can't move around if the box is dropped.

  Carey: 1:56

  Now, a lot of times, like I've gotten eggs from people before where the box looked like a scrambled egg.

  Jennifer: 2:04

  Now,

  Carey: 2:06

  you actually tested that out one time. You put some eggs in. Packaged the way you're talking about and kicked them around in your barn, didn't you?

  Jennifer: 2:14

  In my garage. Yeah, man. I soccer kicked them everywhere.

  Carey: 2:17

  Did you try to hatch those?

  Jennifer: 2:19

  No, I didn't try to hatch them. They were just eating eggs, but I did candle them and the air cells stayed intact.

  Carey: 2:26

  All right. So if you use egg foam and double box them and package them correctly, and the post office does what I suspect sometimes is play soccer, with your eggs, because they see the stickers that say hatching eggs, fragile, handle with care. They're like, Oh, let's play soccer. We're bored. If that happens, you're still going to have your air sacks. So you'll have a good chance at having a good hatch rate.

  Jennifer: 3:01

  You'll have a better chance.

  Carey: 3:04

  Yeah. Better chance. What heating, how do you heat your chicks when they come out? He lamps plates. Reptile heaters. What do you use?

  Jennifer: 3:16

  Plates are the only way to go a hundred percent, a thousand percent.

  Carey: 3:21

  So I'm a huge fan of plates myself. If you've got a small area, they come in 10 by 10.

  Jennifer: 3:28

  Yep.

  Carey: 3:28

  And if you have a big area, they come in 12 by 12 and you put two of them together. That's right. I like it because you, man, you can put it way down. The birds get in there. They hover up under it, just like they would hover up under the mama. Or, you know what, if they get too hot, they move.

  Jennifer: 3:49

  Yeah, I keep my tilted.

  Carey: 3:51

  The big problem with the heat lamps is fried birds and fried barns.

  Jennifer: 3:59

  Yeah, it happens. It's a

  Carey: 4:00

  big problem. People think

  Jennifer: 4:01

  that's a myth, but just come spring, just watch social media and people will post their burnt down barns.

  Carey: 4:09

  And then you'll have people like me that say it. Did you use a heat plate or a lamp and they're going to tell you about their big red lamp?

  Jennifer: 4:19

  I would say 90 percent of the time somebody says that they don't think a heat plate gets warm enough That they probably have the brooder on a cold concrete floor

  Carey: 4:30

  And we actually have an episode about brooding And we talk about Getting your brooder off the floor, all that good stuff.

  Jennifer: 4:40

  So go back to that one, but plates is the answer.

  Carey: 4:44

  All right. Everybody knows what a mud is, what a Heinz 57 is. But what is a barnyard mix or a BYM?

  Jennifer: 4:55

  So BYM stands for barnyard mix, and it's just a mutt. It's, it can be a cross of two breeds or it can be a cross of 47 breeds. It does not matter. You start crossing out, it's a barnyard mix.

  Carey: 5:12

  Now, like a dog, those can be some of your best chickens.

  Jennifer: 5:17

  Absolutely.

  Carey: 5:19

  They can lay you some great eggs that are huge, different colors. They can do all that, and they can outrun some of the fastest predators.

  Jennifer: 5:31

  But at the end of the day,

  Carey: 5:32

  yeah, oh yeah, they're going to have some hybrid vigor because you take two birds that are free ranging out in the yard doing whatever teenagers like to do. And that, that's how that egg gets made. All right. All right. Here. Oh here's a really good one. I like this one. What's an egg float test? And I see people, everybody talks about how do I know if my eggs are good, how are they not, whatever. Somebody's going to comment that and then 50 people are going to say, what's egg float?

  Jennifer: 6:08

  I have, I want to preface this answer with I have never done it. Have you ever done it?

  Carey: 6:15

  Yes, I actually have. What did you

  Jennifer: 6:17

  learn?

  Carey: 6:18

  Okay, so for me, I see this question a lot too. How long are your eggs fresh if you leave them on the counter? So I took some and I started writing dates on them and I, I told everybody in the house, I said, don't mess with these eggs that I have. I used a silver Sharpie because it was different because I normally use a pencil or a black Sharpie to label my eggs. I said, don't eat these. And so I kept them and I was like, okay, it got down to close to the two months and at first I was cracking them well at two months I had one that I don't think that egg was ever good. And it should not have come in the house

  Jennifer: 7:09

  because

  Carey: 7:09

  my daughter will help me gather them help as I'm holding up air quotes because sometimes I will go check pens and when I'm feeding or whatever and I'm like, Hey, when's the last time I gathered eggs yesterday? And I'm like, I got a pen that has a trio in it. It's got half a dozen eggs in it. I know that's crap. So I'll preface that, but I had one explode as I, like I tap, tap, boom.

  Jennifer: 7:37

  And

  Carey: 7:37

  it was like one in an incubator that blew up. It was rough. So after that, I started. I would put them in water and see if they float. And now I've seen different people, if it floats so much, then, you need to eat it within a day or two. I'm going to say, no, I'm going to say that if you're unsure enough that you're resulting to a float test to check them. Number one, you should probably eat more eggs. Number two, you have too many chickens. Number three, if it floats any at all, throw it in the garbage. That's just me.

  Jennifer: 8:20

  So I think people may misconstrue the purpose of an egg float test. The purpose is to see if it's good or bad. Or if it's still viable. While you're incubating. So let's start with the incubating question. A bird is already breathing at that point through the air sac and through the porous air shell. So please don't put in a bowl of water. And then second. The float test, and I did do a little cursory research on this. All it will tell you is how much air is inside of the egg, and that is going to depend on the porous. Porous, is that the right word? Porous.

  Carey: 9:06

  That's a long word for Middle Tennessee, how

  Jennifer: 9:08

  porous and egg is, or the sp is gonna be dependent on the species. The hen, the age of the hen, the size of the egg, I mean there's so many variables there, but it just simply tells you how much air is inside of that egg. So the fresher eggs have less air. And, the older eggs don't, is a very broad generalization.

  Carey: 9:37

  And that's why I say if it floats any, don't do

  Jennifer: 9:43

  it. That ain't

  Carey: 9:44

  right.

  Jennifer: 9:45

  And according to the stuff that I was reading, it does not work on quail eggs.

  Carey: 9:52

  Never try to go on quail eggs.

  Jennifer: 9:53

  They don't last

  Carey: 9:55

  long for me.

  Jennifer: 9:56

  No, no, when I'm bowling, um. Carpooling them, then if they float I just throw them in the peel pile, but I just figured there's, if there's that much air in there that they're floating, there's not enough egg in there to worry about peeling are already a pain to peel anyway,

  Carey: 10:12

  unless you got one of them handy dandy electric peelers. They're pretty nice.

  Jennifer: 10:15

  I do have

  Carey: 10:16

  one. They're nice.

  Jennifer: 10:18

  They are. It's still a

  Carey: 10:18

  pain in the butt though.

  Jennifer: 10:19

  But if they're floating, I still don't want to peel them because a half size quail egg? Come on.

  Carey: 10:25

  Nope. If I buy eggs, if I buy eggs and a hen, will she hatch them? There's another 10 million different options. If it's a silky, who is a breed that is notoriously known for being broody? You got a really good chance, a really good chance if it's a standard bred Rhode Island red, or probably one of your Orpingtons, probably not going to be broody.

  Jennifer: 11:04

  So you, first of all, you have to have a broody hen. So just because you have a hen doesn't necessarily make her broody. And I guess we didn't put broody on this list. Nobody asked us about broody. Broody means that a hen wants to hatch eggs, that she's ready to set. Yeah. Yeah. So if you can't just hand me an egg and, I'll have a baby in a few months,

  Carey: 11:27

  Here's three eggs and I'm gonna hand you a chicken upside down by the legs here. Go hatch. These don't work.

  Jennifer: 11:34

  Yeah, no, that's not gonna work. You need an incubator

  Carey: 11:40

  and, we both have links to incubators on our sides, ranging anywhere from 25 to 30. 2, 500

  Jennifer: 11:47

  or wait until the end does go broody and then try to find eggs try to time it correctly. Yep You can do that.

  Carey: 11:54

  All right. What is the difference? Oh, this is a good one. What is the difference between? hardware cloth and chicken wire so chicken wire is that Octagon shape stuff that is about as thick As two, maybe three hairs and so a hardware cloth is like locking a door is there to make you feel good like you tried, but it's really not going to do the trick. It's something trying to get in or the chicken wire. Now hardware cloth is. Made out of actual real metal. The wires are typically welded together is what three, four times thicker than chicken wire, at least. Typically got squares or maybe rectangle shapes. I can tell you from firsthand experience, chicken wire will not keep a raccoon out of your chicken pen. What it will do is keep the chickens inside the pen. So the raccoon doesn't have to chase him very far when he gets in. However, hardware cloth will keep a raccoon out. That's my experience. Hardware cloth is a pain in the butt to work with because it is so thick and durable. And pro tip on hardware cloth, if you paint it black from a distance, it's like it disappears. What's your thoughts?

  Jennifer: 13:42

  Wear gloves.

  Carey: 13:43

  Oh yeah.

  Jennifer: 13:44

  You will tear your hands up.

  Carey: 13:47

  Especially some of the cheaper stuff that you find on Amazon, like the ends of it. I got some out one time and, I love Amazon and like my hands were bleeding. Within two or three minutes, I was like, oh, bumped this. I went, washed my hands, got'em to quit bleeding and I put some gloves on and I hate gloves.

  Jennifer: 14:08

  Yeah, leather gloves. Yeah. I personally buy my hardware cloth off of Amazon, but I am done building. I don't want anymore stuff. I have enough. I believe I have 32 pens at this point and I don't need anymore, I I'm done. That part of my life is over. But, that is, that was the cheapest place to buy it.

  Carey: 14:34

  32 pens, you can do a thing or two with that.

  Jennifer: 14:36

  Yeah. If you are just getting started and you're going to be using a lot of hardware cloth, there is these nifty cutters that go on your drill. They're not expensive. I want to say 20 ish bucks or so right through the hardware cloth, like butter,

  Carey: 14:54

  Another thing that works really well. There's a type of scissors that people that do vinyl siding use, and that's what I started cutting mine with. My wife's dad, he was in the trades for a lot of years, and he saw me putting one together And he was like, dude, you're doing it wrong. Do you got any snips? And I was like, yeah, he said, use them. They're made for vinyl siding. He goes, that stuff ain't much thicker than vinyl siding. Touche. They, it'll go through them just like scissors would.

  Jennifer: 15:29

  Now, if you're using your regular old household scissors to cut through it, which you can do with chicken wire. Then throw it away and order Harbor cloth because if you cut it with regular old scissors, then raccoon claws will go through it.

  Carey: 15:44

  Oh yeah. Especially your neighbor's dog.

  Jennifer: 15:47

  Oh yeah.

  Carey: 15:49

  Ooh, here's one that's could have a multiple choice answers or multiple part answer.

  Jennifer: 15:56

  All right.

  Carey: 15:56

  When a chicken falls over, In my yard and fans the wing out. What is she doing? Is that they're asking for a margarita, right? Here's another. No,

  Jennifer: 16:12

  wait, I have to answer it. So he's just sunbathing. She's put her wing out so she can get the heat on her skin and stuff.

  Carey: 16:20

  Yeah. Okay. Sunbathing. So the other answers were right. They were asking for a margarita. Is one I see in all kinds of groups. And it's one of my favorites because sometimes I'm just like Lord, do I need a rooster to have eggs? She's lying. Y'all Is a lot like,

  Jennifer: 16:52

  no, don't go there yet. No, you don't need a rooster, You can, a hen will lay an egg anyway.

  Carey: 16:59

  I was gonna say an independent woman, she don't need a man. No. You do not need a rooster to have eggs. However, if you do want to get an incubator or. A broody hen and hatch them. She's going to need a man in her life.

  Jennifer: 17:22

  You need a rooster for that.

  Carey: 17:24

  You do need a rooster for fertilized eggs. Yeah. All right. Let's see here. Ooh here's one. What is the yellow stuff inside a bird's cavity? So after you've put it to sleep, processed it,

  Jennifer: 17:44

  what's

  Carey: 17:44

  that yellow stuff?

  Jennifer: 17:45

  The flavor packets.

  Carey: 17:47

  That yellow stuff is what you pay money for around Thanksgiving and Christmas. To buy in liquid format, you melt that down and it becomes broth.

  Jennifer: 18:04

  It's fat, but

  Carey: 18:05

  yeah, it is technically it's fat. That's where the other stuff comes from.

  Jennifer: 18:10

  Yeah.

  Carey: 18:11

  Ooh, my favorite. How do you fix the feathers? On a bird Now, folks, I'm gonna tell you,

  Jennifer: 18:23

  you comb it

  Carey: 18:26

  I was gonna say, you buy the good shampoo What you do is you check what you're feeding the bird. You make sure it is at least close to the nutritional levels of protein, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, all that good stuff that the bird is supposed to have. If it is, you wait until it molts. Because until them feathers are replaced, it's not happening.

  Jennifer: 19:00

  Exactly.

  Carey: 19:01

  Now, I will say if you got like split feathers and stuff like that, some of that can be genetic. Some of it can also be that you fed them turkey starter instead of chick starter for way too long and it started negatively affecting their kidneys and overloading their body with protein and messing them up. So that's really like a situation by situation thing. But if you're feeding them the proper feed. The only way you're going to fix that is wait till they molt.

  Jennifer: 19:33

  Yeah. Anything called quote unquote feather fixer is really a marketing thing. You have to wait for the molt for a new feather to come in. And that is your opportunity with your nutrition to get the proper feathering again. And then it's up to you to maintain. That condition for a year, because you only get this shot once a year.

  Carey: 20:01

  Yeah. Yeah. Once a year. And what comes back. It is what it is. All right. Let's see. What other questions do we have?

  Jennifer: 20:12

  I have one. I see. What's that? All right, how about the breed of Easter Egger? What does it look like?

  Carey: 20:20

  You look in the nesting box, it looks like a rainbow.

  Jennifer: 20:26

  But,

  Carey: 20:28

  it's my understanding now, I'm no expert on Easter Eggers, just like I'm not an expert on Silkies. But, You can make several different combinations of different breeds. And basically you're making a mixture and it changes the color of the eggs.

  Jennifer: 20:53

  You are making an intentional barnyard mix.

  Carey: 20:57

  Essentially. Yes.

  Jennifer: 20:58

  Yes. It is not a breed. Cause that basket looks so

  Carey: 21:02

  pretty.

  Jennifer: 21:04

  It can literally look like anything and it won't necessarily lay. A pink or blue or green egg. It can still lay white or brown. You're just playing with the genetics.

  Carey: 21:16

  That's it. Science experiments is another way to refer to them. Ooh, ooh, sex and chicks. If it's got a B shape on its wing, it's a male.

  Jennifer: 21:30

  Oh, bull.

  Carey: 21:32

  Ooh. Here's another one. Look, I had this guy last year. He was like, can I pick out my chicks? I was like, I was at a, like a trade show type deal. None of those chicks was going back to my farm, so I didn't care if he touched them or not. This guy was picking them up by their feet, holding them upside down. And he said, the ones that try to get up are roosters and the ones that just stay laying down are hens. And I'm like if you think of, if you think about, I don't know, I ain't seen him since. If you think about, moving around six month old birds or whatever, a lot of times the male birds will try to get back up, when you're holding them upside down. And a lot of times the females don't, that ain't the exact science though, because I've had females try to fly when I was trying to hold them upside down to carry them from one pin to another. Like they tried flipping over and flying.

  Jennifer: 22:30

  Had a good one. I was selling poults to some people. They came to pick them up and she was holding them in her hand and letting the legs down between her fingers. And I can't remember which way is which, but if the legs stayed dangling, it was one sex. And if they retracted them and tried to hold them up, it was the other.

  Carey: 22:49

  Yeah. I've seen them. I've seen them like they'd pick them up and then hold them. And I'm like, what are you doing? You're Checking for future weight like you want to see what it's going to be like in the crock pot. I don't know. Let's see.

  Jennifer: 23:05

  So wait, is there a way to sex the birds? The only true way would be auto sexing.

  Carey: 23:11

  I was going to say there, there's two ways you could auto sex, which that starts when you pair the birds together. You know what's going to come out and the other way is, and I'm not a huge fan of vent sex and babies because it's pretty brutal, in my opinion, and they're reproductive stuff hasn't really formed yet when they're a couple of days old or right out of the hatcher. There's been times that I have ordered from commercial hatcheries. All cockerels, because I had a guy that he wanted to buy roosters that were ready to go in a

  Jennifer: 23:58

  crockpot.

  Carey: 24:00

  So I'm like, Oh, cool. I'll get online. I can get them things for 99 cents all day long. They'll send them to me happily because a lot of times people always want hens. So boom, it's a win. Cause I know what it costs to feed that bird for about 12 weeks. Good to go. I've done that and I've got hands. So when they're that young. Nothing's formed, so you don't know what's popping out and what's not.

  Jennifer: 24:31

  So there's a diagram that floats around Facebook all the time where they're holding out the wing feather of a day old chick or three day old chick and the feathers, the flight feathers, one's longer, one's shorter, one's longer, one's shorter. I hate that diagram. Because somebody took it out of the longer article which is easily found and it's saved on my computer But I can't tell you right at the moment what the name of it is But it's only for a fast feathering large breed bird Like a brahma or something. It's not For every chick it was taken out of context So find that Do a reverse image look in that article come up but I wish people would quit sharing that darn diagram.

  Carey: 25:23

  All right, here's another one that I see a lot of. People talking about using tree limbs for roost.

  Jennifer: 25:30

  Not a fan.

  Carey: 25:32

  See, like for me if that tree limb is like the size of your fist, which is too big to be working with inside of a coop, it might be a little different. I personally like two by fours, horizontal, yeah, horizontal where the four part, because even though it doesn't get really cold in Alabama, when it, for those three days that we do have that are cold. In our chance to get rid of all the mosquitos, I want my birds to be able to squat down over their feet so their little toes don't get cold.

  Jennifer: 26:13

  So the argument is, on the other side, is well when they were wild they would get up in the trees and they would get on the limbs. That is a true statement. The part that is left out is they would pick the limb they wanted to be on and they would probably pick a larger limb and the widest part closest to the main trunk of the tree. Yeah, whereas humans build small coops and pick small limbs that fit in their small coops.

  Carey: 26:46

  Because they're easy.

  Jennifer: 26:47

  Yes, and this does not service a bird well. You can also end up with a crooked keel bone. Which is the more, you're just going to have to research that on your own. We're not going to talk about it today. But if the bird is roosting crooked consistently, you can get a crooked keel bone. You could get a pendulous crop. There's a lot of issues. You can get frostbite. There's a lot of downsides to using a tree limb. So I would encourage you not to use one. Use a board. I mean you can get boards pretty cheap. Just use a board.

  Carey: 27:23

  I mean anything to be honest you can go to job sites and find drops that people would probably let you pick up for nothing.

  Jennifer: 27:33

  My favorite fruit. One of my very best friends in Michigan asked me what to do about a coop when she was building a coop. And I told her to use saw horses. Because then she could move them around where she wanted them, take them out and hose them off. So I've used saw horses, I have saw horses now. You can build them as tall as you want, short as you want, whatever. They're easy to build out of scrap.

  Carey: 27:59

  If you like going to garage sales you can find used saw horses there. You take it, the one where the top's been sliced up and down, you get you a really long screw, put you a flat 2x4 on top, Screw it down where it can get a hold of something. You're good. I've also found aluminum ones That looked like they'd been beat up and drugged behind the car. at yard sales, but they work really well too. I have some of those in one of my grow outs and they look.

  Jennifer: 28:34

  That would be fine for us down here. Yeah, I wouldn't do that up north. No, don't do metal up north.

  Carey: 28:40

  Yeah. Now, if you're further north in Tennessee, don't use the metal ones. Best substrate in a coop.

  Jennifer: 28:48

  Peat moss.

  Carey: 28:51

  That's I gotta go next week and pick some up. Because I finally have some empty breeding pens. Yeah. So I'm going to, over the next couple of months, play musical pens.

  Jennifer: 29:09

  I started mine today.

  Carey: 29:10

  I'm gonna, I got me an electric rotor tiller that's really quiet and I'm gonna run that thing and turn the ground and throw some lime and turn the ground and do all that mess. And fix it. Supplements. People ask tons of questions about supplements.

  Jennifer: 29:30

  They do. So let's just start at the chick stage. The only thing I ever put in water. There's two things I put in water. The first week that I have a chick. Regardless of species. They get a starter tonic from Moonlight Mile Herbal Farm. I have been using her natural stuff for probably ten years at this point. I buy enough once a year to last me for a year. Maybe one day I'll buy enough and she'll give me the recipe. But I swear by her tonic, it's just fantastic. Probiotics, they get that for a week, they're good to go. And then the rest of the time I have a garlic, oregano, AC oh, A CV stands for apple cider vinegar, by the way. A CV. Garlic, oregano. A CV. That's it. And it sits in water and it seeps. And it steeps and it just sits there in my barn fridge constantly. I never, I just add to it. If I use some, I just put some more stuff in there. But it doesn't take a whole lot. I just put like a, I don't know, two second pour per gallon whenever it's time of stress. So we're actually having a cold snap here this week. So I probably will give them some tomorrow. And all of their, they're molting. They're already stressed. So I'll just add some to their water just for an immune booster while the weather's changing. That's it. I don't add anything else to their water. Good, clean water is all they need.

  Carey: 31:02

  I'm a huge fan of good clean water.

  Jennifer: 31:04

  Yeah. As for feed supplements, first of all, don't try to fix cheap feed. Buy good quality feed. Yep. And then you can do supplements on top of it. No matter how good the feed is, it's still a commercial feed. I still use a breeder supplement during breeding season on top of it. It just gives the chicks much more vigor and it helps the hens through the season. But that's all I do. Carrie's better at that than I am. I'm a lazy supplement person. But I do have it and I do use it.

  Carey: 31:45

  Yeah, I used to use supplements and good feed. Then I started making my own feed. And that's a whole nother show.

  Jennifer: 31:53

  Yep.

  Carey: 31:54

  All right. That is all the questions we have for today. We appreciate y'all listening till next time. Y'all have a good one.

  Jennifer: 32:03

  See ya.

Mastering Chicken Math: Essential Tips for New Poultry Keepers

Getting started is tough! Knowing what you need and don’t need, save some money and find out the essentials to get started.

chicken essentials

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible. Alright, so today we are going to talk about the, what some of us refer to as being a victim when you go to Tractor Supply or whatever your feed store is and you hear that chirping sound. And they were only a couple of bucks. Whatever story you tell your spouse when you brought them home. And they looked at you and said, chicks. So today we're going to talk about what all that entails what you should have, what you need to be prepared for, because you can't just bring home some chicks and throw them down on the ground.

  Duncan: 1:05

  The Poultry Nerds Podcast is brought to you, in part, by the generous support of Show Pro. Show Pro is a revolutionary poultry feed supplement, supercharged with key ingredients like Cysteine the number 1 amino acid to make your Show Bird a Show Pro Champion! Check out show pro usa dot com for more informatio

  Jennifer: 1:23

  No.

  Carey: 1:24

  So we're going to talk about that today.

  Jennifer: 1:26

  So it's almost like you catch a disease while you're at the big box store and it's called chicken math.

  Carey: 1:31

  Okay, so chicken math is a legit thing. I used to think it was not, but the only thing that is more real or more worse than chicken math is quail math.

  Jennifer: 1:44

  Oh yeah.

  Carey: 1:45

  Because they're little and they're cute and they multiply quicker.

  Jennifer: 1:54

  So for people who don't know us, we might want to tell them like how many birds we have on the property at our home. Lowest or highest?

  Carey: 2:06

  Okay, so My wife lives my life with me so She may not listen to the podcast, so we'll be

  Jennifer: 2:14

  Okay David doesn't listen either

  Carey: 2:17

  Okay. He actually walks in your barn though on occasion. Do you know how many quail you have?

  Jennifer: 2:25

  I do not. I can tell you that I think that I went over 4, 000 in the spring in the barn. That was just a good educated guess.

  Carey: 2:37

  Okay, so on the

  Jennifer: 2:38

  property today right now,

  Carey: 2:41

  I

  Jennifer: 2:42

  would say it would be safe to say I'm under 2, 000.

  Carey: 2:47

  A lot of people cull a lot of quail for the summertime because it's hot.

  Jennifer: 2:55

  I'm doing good at 2, 000. I'm under 2, 000.

  Carey: 2:58

  Yeah, okay. How many chickens do you have?

  Jennifer: 3:01

  Oh, I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say a couple hundred.

  Carey: 3:06

  Turkeys?

  Jennifer: 3:08

  30 or 40.

  Carey: 3:11

  Sure think more 50. I've seen your turkey grow out.

  Jennifer: 3:15

  Let's go with 30 or 40.

  Carey: 3:17

  I'm good. Okay. All right. For chicken math sake. So right now I do not have, that's at Bryant's Roost in Tennessee, down at Double R Farms in Alabama. I have, We'll say a little over a hundred ish chickens. And I don't have a whole lot of quail right now because I built a barn and then I set it up and then I changed the way that I want it set up. So I culled a whole lot and fed a local family, a good bit. And so I don't have a whole lot of quail right now, but that problem is still there. about to get fixed because I'm going to redo the inside of my barn the new way that I should have done it the first time. And I'll blame that on Jennifer because seeing her barn gave me ideas and I was like, I should have done this different. So before it's too late, I'm going to go ahead and do it different. But it peak season, I have between seven and 900 quail because I only have seven stacks. I use the hatching time stacks which you do too for a lot of yours, but you also have some that, that your wonderful husband custom made for you that are pretty nice. So yeah. So today we're going to talk about that. How real chicken math gets and we're gonna we're gonna give you guys some stuff to think about when you do go into that big box store or your local feed store and you hear that chirping sound and you look over and you're like, Okay, these are cute. We want you to think about the bedding. What's your runs gonna look like? Your nest box, roosting bars, ventilation, light, hot, cold, water, feeder, wintertime, summertime, how it all needs to look. And I will say coop bedding, we'll start with that. I am a huge fan of peat moss and stall pellets. I used to not because I was afraid that chickens would, and turkeys would try to eat the stall pellets. And I did see some peck at them, but They don't eat them because they're huge. And once I got over that, I had that fear for me was like the first time I wing banded a chick and you laugh at that because

  Jennifer: 6:02

  the

  Carey: 6:05

  whole time, because I'm like really nervous. And, we're going back and forth talking about it. And I'm sent you a picture and I'm like, it didn't die. And you're like, it didn't even bleed. So that's a whole nother thing.

  Jennifer: 6:18

  Let's back up for just a minute. We actually did a three part podcast on brooding. So when you bring those chicks home, go back and listen to the brooding one. We're going to pick up on this podcast after brooding. Yeah.

  Carey: 6:33

  Yeah, they're there. If it's a chicken, five, six weeks old, time to put them out. If it's a turkey, you need to wait a couple of months, three months, probably depending on the time of year before you kick them out. If it's a quail, I'm going to say it depends on the genetics of your bird and the climate. One to two weeks.

  Jennifer: 6:56

  Oh, you're getting a little early for Alabama. Let's be reasonable here. Summertime. Oh, summertime. Okay.

  Carey: 7:03

  Yeah, summertime One to two weeks. Now, I will say with quail the first week Of their life, you need to just about cook them. They love heat.

  Jennifer: 7:18

  Let's go, let's get out outside.

  Carey: 7:21

  Go back and listen to our brooding podcast where we talk all about that.

  Jennifer: 7:25

  Yeah. Let's talk about outside. So I've been keeping birds for a long time, had them as kids. Then I didn't have them. Then I got them back again. And I am not capable of. Cleaning coops some people on Facebook, it appears they do it daily. Some of their coops are very high maintenance and I'm not all about chickens being that high maintenance. Did the shavings thing. I don't do sand and I don't like sand. Don't see any reason to do sand. And we'll get into that in just a minute, but that's a personal preference. So I came up with this way of doing it and a lot of people on my personal Facebook group have copied me doing it and have all texted me back and said that it's the bomb. This is the way to do it. this cuts down on upkeep to almost nothing, honestly. So what I do is I dig my coops out down to the bottom when you're first starting. Mine have clay bottoms and then I fill in any cracks with some play sand, just whatever kind of cheap sand you can get. Just make a smooth bottom, fill in the cracks and then get your aglime. From any of your box stores, it's 4 for 50 pounds. You do not need to buy that name brand stuff. That's what 30 for five ounces or something. I don't even know how much it is.

  Carey: 8:59

  Yeah. It's really expensive.

  Jennifer: 9:00

  Yeah. Don't do that. Go to the store, get Aglime. It's crushed limestone. That's all it is. Make sure that's what you get. There is a different kind of lime hy hydrolyze hydrated. Hydrated lime. Don't get that. That's for making concrete. That's bad stuff.

  Carey: 9:15

  Yeah, you don't need that.

  Jennifer: 9:16

  Get the cheap stuff. You can tell by the price tag. It's$4 for 50 pounds. Anyway, it's just crest limestone. It won't hurt anything. And just make it snow on top of that base that you have. In my case, it's clay. But make it white. Just dump the whole thing in there. It won't hurt anything. What it does is it's changing the pH Of the ground and it just makes it what I consider inhospitable to other things, bugs aren't going to like it. Bacteria is not going to like it.

  Carey: 9:50

  and so you want to put that base like that. That's how you keep all the bugs. A lot of people have my problems and this bug and that bug. If you dust it, like a scene from Wolf of the Wall Street, dust it before you put your other layers in. You're not going to have bugs.

  Jennifer: 10:11

  Nope. You won't. Then I come back and I dump stall pellets in there, probably two inches deep, not terribly deep, two or three pellets deep. And of course, depending on how big of a space you have I have eight by eight coops on the breeder pens. And it takes me two or three bags to go in there. It's been a few years since I did it. So I'm trying to remember. I want to say two or three years. Then you go over to Lowe's and you buy one of those big bags of peat moss. Those big cubic things that they're heavy. Yeah, you might want somebody to load them for you. But how much are those like 15, 16.

  Carey: 10:56

  So they're a little more expensive closer to 20 here.

  Jennifer: 11:01

  Okay.

  Carey: 11:02

  But. If you get lucky and somebody dropped a pallet of them and the bags are busted a little bit, they'll knock off 20 30 percent, which is nice. But I will say for the people that are thinking peat moss,

  Jennifer: 11:20

  15

  Carey: 11:21

  to 20 dollars, we're talking about a one and done thing.

  Jennifer: 11:26

  Yes.

  Carey: 11:27

  This is not the way to set up your run.

  Jennifer: 11:31

  It's not that expensive though. It's

  Carey: 11:33

  not that expensive. But I can say as being somebody that did shavings on top of shavings on top of shavings and mixed it in and shavings and it's, you're going to spend more money in a year buying shavings than you will buying stall pellets and peat moss and doing it this way. As

  Jennifer: 12:01

  many birds as I have, I might go through 20 bags of shavings a year and that's during spring.

  Carey: 12:08

  But that's also considering the fact that you have a couple hundred square feet inside your barn that you put three to four inches worth of shavings. In that in the winter time.

  Jennifer: 12:24

  I do. Yeah.

  Carey: 12:25

  So that, that's one of the reasons why you go through a lot of your shavings there.

  Jennifer: 12:30

  Yeah. Okay. So back to our breeder coop. So any outside that you got, you're going to start with your ag lime. You're going to put down stall pellets. Now the reason for stall pellets is they're going to absorb moisture. You don't water them down. You just dump them in there, rake them. You can use, even use a broom really to move them around. Just rake them smooth. Don't, lose your brain over it, just smooth them out a little bit. So when it rains, that will actually turn to sawdust is if they get wet or if they knock over their water bucket or whatever, they'll turn to sawdust and it won't create a wet spot to harbor bacteria and stuff. And then on top of that, you're going to take this big old heavy bag of peat moss. Now in my eight by eight coupes, it only takes one bag. over the top of it. I mean it goes really far. That bag is really compacted.

  Carey: 13:25

  And once that bag in an eight by eight, see I use 10 by 10s and I use one bag for that too, but we're talking it's going to be a couple inches thick by the time that peat moss gets broken apart from being compacted like that.

  Jennifer: 13:39

  Yes.

  Carey: 13:40

  And for me personally, I don't get real serious about breaking up those chunks. Because when you have the chunks and you just, pop it loose, for me, it's really good, cheap redneck entertainment to put birds in there, take my bucket, sit down and watch them pick and dig and go crazy because they will do that crap for days until the chickens get. The ground just like they want it.

  Jennifer: 14:14

  Yes. So they'll play in that peat moss and they'll level it all out for you. And then if you are not crazy about the peat moss or they. If they're like my birds that lay eggs on the ground because they're too big to go into nest boxes. I do maybe dump some shavings in a corner where they're going to lay their eggs. But the peat moss, it's dry. It gets on the eggs. You just wipe it off. It doesn't hurt anything. The reason why I don't like shavings is because they just, they get wet in there. Icky and they start stinking and then you get bugs on them and I just don't like shavings

  Carey: 14:54

  like for me I was like what's the difference because stall pellets turn to sawdust which is still wood And I don't really know the science behind it But I do know for a fact that the dust or the sawdust, they won't, that doesn't harbor bacteria and that doesn't mold. One of the problems that I had with shavings is, I've got six of my breeder pens are in a low spot. And when I was using shavings, It would mold, and that's a whole new problem because you got chickens that are like, Ooh, what is this? Let me try to eat it. And now you're putting some kind of wonky gut bacteria inside of your birds, causing all kinds of gastrointestinal issues. And that's a whole nother nutrition show by itself.

  Jennifer: 15:45

  And the idea here is you want birds to be dry. Less humidity and most ventilation. So stall pellets keep you dry. Peat moss has a neutral pH. I think, isn't that what it says in Jeff's book, a neutral pH?

  Carey: 16:03

  It does have a neutral pH and they are. You can use peat moss to pack a wound when it's fresh out of the bag because it has a neutral pH. Jeff and I have actually had that conversation. We did a three podcast series with him several months ago where we went through his book niche poultry. And one of the things in there, we talked about bedding and I asked him about it and he told me that it's essentially sterile. It's sterile. Until, what they do, it does, it drains really well. It doesn't hold moisture. So like for me in my coops and my runs, I have fans because in the summertime, I have a timer that runs my fans. It comes on in the morning, cuts off in the afternoon. So that helps drive out even more when it rains, if there's not a breeze, it gives them a breeze. All that good stuff. And then I'll use the same timer for my lights because I like to hatch this time of year.

  Jennifer: 17:14

  So when it does rain, and now you got to keep in mind that my coops and I'm pretty sure Carrie's coops are to have wire walls. We are all about ventilation. We don't have solid walls on anything. So when it does rain, there will be water that does come in those. Wirewall sometimes, and I don't even bat an eyelash at it. I just look at it and keep on checking because by the end of the day, it's going to be dry and I just keep I know there's probably technical terms, but the metal rake that's like rectangular, not like a leaf, right? But the other rake, the metal rates, when it's dry, you just whack it down and rake it up and go on about your merry, merry business. Now as far as cleaning, now you guys who are only halfway paying attention cleaning your coops, listen to me for a minute. My main coop, which is my entire lean to of my barn, I created this mix in 2020 as an experiment on that side to see how long it lasted. in 2020. It's 2024. I still have it in there. I've never done anything to it. I did, we did have a flood a couple years ago, and I got a big puddle in there, so I did dump a couple more bags of stall pellets in there, but that's it. I don't do anything. Under the roost bars, I take that metal rake and just smooth it and dry it out. I don't have flies. I don't have moisture buildup. I don't get frostbite in that coop. They dust bathe in it. So it's because I have to have a rake in there to fill in their dust bathing holes I just yeah, I mean that's It's four going on four years now over four years and I have not shoveled it out Done anything more than just rake it smooth So

  Carey: 19:21

  that's why I say one and done.

  Jennifer: 19:25

  Yes.

  Carey: 19:25

  You're gonna spend a few extra, not a lot extra, but a few extra bucks up front. But we want you to learn from our experience and, Hey if you want to try it the other way and prove us wrong, go to it. But this is what's worked out for us.

  Jennifer: 19:43

  All so that's that. So in my runs now, I know there's a lot of arguing over how big does a run have to be? The run needs to be as big as you can make it. If you can make it 18 acres, make it 18 acres. But. It needs to be big enough that you can keep some kind of vegetation in there. If not, you have too many birds. That's just my personal opinion.

  Carey: 20:06

  That's right. Either, so some people like to rotate them. I think in one of your spots you have extras that you let the vegetation grow and then you, Move them over and then you let the other one go wild. And I'm a fan of that too. It works for cows, it should work for chickens. And to me, if you can, I can make you feed custom for your chickens that has all the nutrition they need. They still need to eat some grass.

  Jennifer: 20:43

  They do.

  Carey: 20:44

  It makes the gut health, like you can't put a whole lot of that in the bag. And so like for me, it even got to a point where I bought a lawnmower where I could bag grass to put it in my runs to make sure they had enough. Because last summer chicken math got out of control and I had over 300 birds on the property and I'm not exaggerating. That might be an understatement and that is way too many. So yes, and I do have all my pens are wire. In the wintertime, I do have. some minor wire at the bottom. A lot of yours have space where you have metal at the bottom, and that's a project that I'm going to work on once it's not 105 temperature and humidity in Alabama. Because what I like to do in the winter is I'll put up stuff to block the wind. This year I'm going to do that with sheet metal and it's going to be a one and done thing. I'm gonna put that there that way, If your bird, if it's 20 degrees outside and your bird wants to be a smart bird, they're going to get down on the ground and the wind's going to be blocked and, everything's going to be great. If your bird's going to be like several of the idiots that I have, when it got down to 15 and 17 degrees last winter instead of being below what was blocking the wind, the ding dongs were still three feet up in the air, four feet up in the air on the roost. Flopping in the wind. And I'm like, are you not cold? But the reason I did not have a lot of problems with stuff freezing and frost bite is because they're aired out. Yes, I have water in there, but it doesn't get humid because the wind constantly blows it out. And that's one of the reasons why, if you put your birds up in a coop at night, I would never put water in that coop.

  Jennifer: 22:59

  Oh, if it doesn't have ventilation, you mean? Yeah,

  Carey: 23:01

  yep.

  Jennifer: 23:02

  Oh yeah, no, no, they, and you can't have too much ventilation. You just can't.

  Carey: 23:07

  They're not they're designed to be outside. Chickens are designed to chicken. And their body temperature is several degrees hotter than ours normally anyway.

  Jennifer: 23:18

  And we're going to do another show on winterizing. We've been getting tips from breeders all around the country, as far north as. Vermont, right? And then you had a friend in Alaska. Give us some tips.

  Carey: 23:31

  Yep. I have, we're going to have information from Alaska. We're going to have information from Canada, Vermont, all the way down to Texas and Alabama. So Florida, they don't have winter in Florida.

  Jennifer: 23:44

  No, but we can still pretend. Okay. So you were talking about your roost bars. So my breeder coops have four foot metal walls and then it's wire the rest of the way up. Now my roost are only two feet high. But now I have giant birds and the bigger your birds, the lower the roost because when they land hard. So you don't want them breaking things. I use two by fours flat side up.

  Carey: 24:14

  You also don't want them to get bumblefoot.

  Jennifer: 24:17

  So you want to keep those roosts low. Two foot off the ground is sufficient because it's just really their posture more so than the height. Turkeys get two by eights. Just whatever I've got laying around. They get two by eights. The other ones get two by fours, flat side up. And My friend up in Michigan called me the other day and she found mites on one of her birds and she was freaking out. She'd never seen him before and she wanted to put some medicine on them, which I was telling her what to do, but she wanted to put some medicine on them. And I said, we'll just do it at night. She said, I can't reach him at night. They roost up in the rafters.

  Carey: 24:57

  Oh, yeah,

  Jennifer: 24:58

  that's why you want two feet off the ground.

  Carey: 25:03

  I know a lot of people that they just let them come in the barn and, even large birds, they're going to get as high as they can get. So you gotta, if you want to be able to do something at night while it's easy to get them because they can't really see you that well, you're going to need to control that.

  Jennifer: 25:26

  So my rooster only two feet up and that is plenty. And so they're blocked by the wind for that four foot metal. All right. So the water I see a lot of fancy waters on the market and I know you have a fancy water, but I use a bucket, just a bucket of water.

  Carey: 25:48

  So I am a huge fan. Because I like automation because sometimes my health isn't great and sometimes I can't get out and go and I don't have a whole lot of help and with the amount of food that I put out, I cannot feed a day and they will be okay. But I do not like a bird to be without water at any time. And I set up an automated system using the cups. And if there's a brand of cups out there, I've tried them over the last several years. Ones with names that you can't pronounce all the way up to the pretty red Renica, Renicute ones. Those are probably the best. But still when you're experiencing problems in your coops, because chicken math happened and your grow outs as they start growing out before you move them out even more, they'll get in there and they'll break them stupid cups and they will flood your pen. So for me, I've bellwaters those things, my turkeys love them, my game foul chickens love them. My American Breast love them and my Rodon Reds love them. They work. It's easy to adjust the height. It's easy to set it up to where they're on the float valve. And you never run out of water unless somebody cuts your water off. But there's reservoir for all that, but it works because before that I was a huge fan of the five gallon bucket and using the cups because they're really easy, put you a couple of three quarter inch copper fittings in there and you're not going to have any funky stuff growing and your water stay clean and everything's good. But them stupid cups when they break is frustrating. So I had to constant, like I had to keep them in inventory. I never knew when they were going to break. So had I not found the bell waterers there's a good chance that I would have float valves in short buckets, just sitting in the pants, because with the buckets that you use, they're designed for horses.

  Jennifer: 28:15

  They're goat mineral buckets.

  Carey: 28:18

  Sorry. But if, okay. If a dang chicken messes that up, you got a bigger problem.

  Jennifer: 28:25

  The only trouble I have is sometimes the turkeys will step in them cause they're clumsy and they'll knock them over. But those bigger birds, I usually keep two in there and not side by side. So if they knock one over, they don't knock the other one over at the same time.

  Carey: 28:40

  Even with that, with those mineral buckets you could, if that became a problem, You could take, they make the little piece that you can screw into a post and hook the handle for the bucket in. Those things, that's a very smart idea. And to be honest, had I seen that before I started using Bellwaters, most of my pens would probably just have buckets.

  Jennifer: 29:10

  Love the buckets. They're just easy. They're just easy and they're black. They don't grow algae really. Occasionally they might, but for the most part they don't. And they're pretty much indestructible. I've had the same buckets going on five years now.

  Carey: 29:23

  So those rubber buckets that they sell at big box stores. They also sell food bowls. A lot of people will use the same rubber.

  Jennifer: 29:36

  Some of the slicks ones?

  Carey: 29:38

  Yeah. they use people use those for their dogs or whatever. I use those for grit. In my grow out, my turkeys love grit. And so do you know, chickens they and they people say, Oh they got rocks in the ground. Mine do because I put it there, but I have that. I just throw it in the bowl like I, I stopped trying to, to reinvent that and get stupid with it. So now about every so often when I start to see the level get low, I'll get a 50 pound bag of grit, fill up all my bowls. Even with all the birds I have, I do that like a couple of times a year.

  Jennifer: 30:23

  If you really want some entertainment sitting on your bucket, change the bowl out for the turkeys. If you have a blue one in there, put a pink one in there and put your grit in it. Oh my word, they'll stand there and they'll pop and they'll talk and they'll discuss it and stranger danger. That's one of my most favorite popular videos on my Facebook page is the turkeys like circling the grit bowl because it's new.

  Carey: 30:49

  So you use buckets with your birds and they're black. When I got those turkeys from you and brought them home and put them in their new pen. It has a bell water in it. And, they were in a different place and man, they're ring ring. And then the tom, he was gobbling and, they were going nuts. And I'm like, man, I put y'all in here at dark, like y'all go to sleep, but they're making all these noises. And I'm like. Okay, fine. So finally, I grabbed one of them, picked it up, loved on it a little bit, got down on one knee in front of the bell water and stuck its head in it.

  Jennifer: 31:29

  And

  Carey: 31:30

  it looked at me like I was a psychopath. And then it started making noises to the other turkeys. And I don't know if that was turkeys or what for, Hey, this is water, but they come over and they just started drinking. And I'm like y'all are weird.

  Jennifer: 31:46

  Yeah. They're funny. They have a personality.

  Carey: 31:50

  That is so true. And I'm getting to where I like turkeys more and more which may create another problem, we're, we are actually officially. on the market for a farm. Yay! We had the breakthroughs this past week. And I got the parameters given to me by my boss and there's really only like she gave me one, two rules. Number one, the house has to be big enough to hold the however many people live with us now. I think it's 11 or I have to move my house there. That's going to be fun. Number two, she absolutely loves her job. Which I'm not going to knock that because that's really hard for a lot of people to say. And she asked for me not to make her commute more than 45 minutes. I can live with that. The flip side is, when all that happens, I'm going to have the logistics of moving all my animals and everything else, and I get to have more turkeys. I'm going to build, I'm going to build a turkey barn.

  Jennifer: 33:12

  Oh, yeah. Okay. Let me know how that works out for you.

  Carey: 33:15

  I'm going to raise them for me.

  Jennifer: 33:17

  Okay, they taste good. All right, let's talk about feeders, because I know we don't feed the same either. So I have moved over to the, I don't even know what you call them, the little trough things are like a foot long, they're orange. And I zip timed to the wire. I love those things. Everything is uniform. I can go in there. It's one scoop. It holds one scoop of food. So actually just about everybody has those now except for the turkeys. The turkeys have a hanging feeder that holds maybe 20 pounds of food.

  Carey: 33:54

  That's the one that I have is like probably two feet tall. Maybe I think it's 20 or 25 pounds.

  Jennifer: 34:04

  Yeah. I don't feel it up. It's just however many scoops I feel like calling in there. Usually it's four or five scoops. Cause I got way too many turkeys right at the moment. And turkey, adult turkeys eat a lot. I'm sure you have figured that out now. But they eat a ton of food. So I, I probably put in there 10 or 15 pounds a day and, yeah, that's a lot, but they have a hanging feeder. Cause you want to keep that feeder up. So you hang it on a chain so you can move it up and down as you want, because the turkeys are a lot like the quail where they shake their head in the food and they knock it out pretty good. So you want to keep that feeder up high and a hang in feeder will allow you to adjust as necessary.

  Carey: 34:47

  So I'm very pro when it comes to feeders having the feeder height at the breast of the shortest bird. Just a little, maybe even a little higher because if they reach for it, it doesn't want you wind up less waste on the ground. And that's for me. And I feed most of my feed is a mash. People that feed only pellets and they have a cleanup day or whatever, where they get it, what's on the ground, that's fine. But my mash when it hits the ground, it essentially becomes part of my peat moss Stall pellet mix, which is a waste of money because my feed's not cheap. So I keep it high with my turkeys. I have the same top hanging feeder. So in my breeding pens, the ones that are wire, I'm actually Copying you on that. I'm switching over to those as well because again, I've done the bucket thing where drill the hole inside of the bucket and put those in. I probably got 20 of those that I don't use anymore. My favorite type is something like that's a trough style feeder. Because whether you feed a mash or a pellet, it works good in a trough. Little pro tip on that, I don't know if you do it or not, I drill small holes in mine. I get horizontal rain and I've had it like get in there and turn the mash like into concrete. And that's not cool. But if I drill some holes, the mash doesn't go through the holes. But if the rain goes in there, the feed will still dry out and they still eat it. So it works out for me.

  Jennifer: 36:41

  So I I tried to only feed in my troughs what they will eat in a day. So I know each pen, how much they will eat. And if the rain is coming, like we don't have any rain. This week in the forecast, but let's just say it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow. I would have fed them earlier today and only would have fed them. What I know will be gone by tonight. And I probably wouldn't feed them again until the rain passed. Now, if we're talking about a huge rain event that lasts several days, then I just wing it at that point in it. And it is what it is. But for the most part, we only get rain, this a day

  Carey: 37:27

  basically.

  Jennifer: 37:29

  So I would have fed them earlier today, made sure they had plenty of food and not either fed them tomorrow morning or not at all tomorrow and just fed them the next day in the morning.

  Carey: 37:41

  See what I do, if I know it's going to rain tomorrow afternoon, I'll feed a little heavy today. So they have enough food today. They got breakfast tomorrow. There shouldn't be a lot left when it's, when the rain hits that, that's what I do and using those that you use the trough style, I've also made some troughs out of PVC and they, with those, I am finding less waste. Some of the other dispenser type ones are cool. They look good. But, you spend money on them and you waste money with feed. You've got some troughs in your grow out that I think are 6 inch PVC pipe that you made years ago.

  Jennifer: 38:29

  Oh gosh, yeah, those things are practically 10 years old, yeah.

  Carey: 38:33

  It's PVC,

  Jennifer: 38:35

  it's not going to go bad.

  Carey: 38:37

  In my grow out pen, Jeff has a friend that makes a feeder out of, he does it out of plywood. I did it. I wanted to do it and I documented some of it, which I'll put that out later to make the feeder. But I use stuff that you can either cut it with a handsaw. Or a saw or a skill saw you, you don't need a table saw. Essentially. I bought the lumber for that. And you use a six inch PVC, and then you build the rest of it outta wood and in a five foot section you can put 50 pounds of feed when you're raising broilers, it's a lot. They eat a lot that, that's what it's designed for. I use them in my grow outs and I don't put near that much in them. I put what I know they're going to eat in a day or so, because, I don't want the rain to get it. Maybe we should

  Jennifer: 39:35

  have started this podcast with that little disclaimer. We're talking about normal birds here, not Cornish.

  Carey: 39:41

  Yeah. Yeah. We're, we are talking about normal, but. But still, it's a six inch PVC trough that you can put extra feed in if you have too many birds in your grow out. Works great. And with a trough style feeder, you can feed whatever. So if you do go to your local feed store and they don't have what you normally buy, and you have to buy something different, it's not going to mess you up with a trough style feeder. If you're using some of the other feeder types. And all they have is crumbles or a mesh and you normally feed pellets, man, it may clog the thing up and you got an even bigger problem. So something to think about with your feeders.

  Jennifer: 40:28

  All right. I think the last two things I've got on my list here is nest box and a light nest box is easy for me because mine lay on the ground. So it's a no brainer.

  Carey: 40:40

  Yeah. So for me my birds, like the smaller ones, like my game birds, I found a attachment that goes on the front side of a five gallon bucket and they will get in it and they love it. They love the five gallon bucket all the way up to a Rhode Island Red or American Breast. Which you think, okay that's a huge bird to get in a five gallon bucket, but they like it. They like the small area. They like the confined part. That's what they like. Now, for turkeys I plan to use a milk crate.

  Jennifer: 41:26

  It's not big enough. I used a galvanized tub. And I filled it up with hay, went over there and got some out of the run of the round bales and filled it up. They did like that and they would, they lay communal. So it's all of your hens to be in there. So I have a wicked picture of three or three or four hens, turkey hens in a galvanized tub that's, I don't know, what are they like two feet across? And they're all their heads are up looking at me taking their picture and it's wicked looking.

  Carey: 41:59

  That gives me an idea because I have, I also have some storage totes that I have used. And I can put one of those, it's two feet across and three feet long. It's a pretty big storage tote. I can put some hay down in that. I do know that turkeys love a open top. Nesting box.

  Jennifer: 42:19

  They do. Yeah.

  Carey: 42:21

  I do know that for a fact. Yeah.

  Jennifer: 42:24

  Same for me. And then the last thing is light. Pretty much all birds need 14 hours a day to be active laying sexually active you've got to, everybody talks about light to get the hens to lay, but you need the light to get the roosters active. Also.

  Carey: 42:43

  I was going to say they, they need that light to stimulate.

  Jennifer: 42:47

  So there's a, a lot of controversy. People are like, no, let them be natural. And I'm indifferent. Whatever you want to do is fine with me. I don't care. I like my birds in the spring, I don't, they're not lit right now. The quail are, but the chickens are not, they're molting right now. I just let them do their thing. But. I want them to start laying earlier in the winter. So I'll start lighting them up around Christmas just to stimulate them and get them going earlier. Whatever you want to do. If you want to light them. You can probably do it with some solar lights if you don't have electricity out there. Just my soap box here for a second. If you don't want to light them, then think about where you're buying your eggs from. So if you're buying your eggs at the store, those birds are lit up and that's fine. Just know where they're coming from.

  Carey: 43:36

  Yeah. A lot of people, they're like let chickens chicken. When you're going to the store in November, December, January and buying eggs, I will guarantee you that those chickens are on a timer and they're lit. And I will also guarantee you that they are not being fed. as good as what you're feeding them. And they may get fed some ingredients that you can't even begin to pronounce, which is stuff I don't want to put in my body. I used to be indifferent, but the more I study nutrition, the more I don't want to put stuff from the store in my body. And yeah, you want to give them a break for a little bit while they're molting. Sure. Go ahead. But. Chickens are chickens they're designed to lay eggs and they're designed to walk around and they're designed to go in a crock pot.

  Jennifer: 44:29

  Yep. So you could water glass eggs. We could do a show on preserving eggs and stuff. But if you don't want to light them, then preserve your eggs back in the summer when they're plentiful. But we'll leave that alone for right now and we'll leave that for another day. But I think we went through my whole list here that I had made and I figured we only had about a 25 minutes conversation.

  Carey: 44:54

  There's a lot when you get victimized to chicken math. Okay. And there's a lot to go over and we don't want to scare people, but we also want people to think before they buy 20 chicks.

  Jennifer: 45:07

  Yeah,

  Carey: 45:08

  you know what you're dealing with.

  Jennifer: 45:10

  All right. So if you went and bought 20 chicks, then listen to our brooder podcast on your way home.

  Carey: 45:16

  Two weeks ago, my sister says, Hey, do you know where I can get a small coop and some chickens? I think I want some chickens. And I said, I got you covered.

  Jennifer: 45:27

  Yeah.

  Carey: 45:27

  I'll give you a couple of brown egg layers and set you up. I got a coop. She said, I'll pay you for it. I was like, whatever, I got you. Perfect little setup for her house.

  Jennifer: 45:39

  Yep.

  Carey: 45:41

  She's still ain't come and got it. So yeah, maybe she did a little research and see that there's a little more involved, like having a kid and, they're cute and all, but there's a lot to it.

  Jennifer: 45:54

  Tell her to subscribe to Poultry Nerds. They might, she might learn something there.

  Carey: 45:59

  I might've scared her away with it. She might've listened to a podcast.

  Jennifer: 46:03

  And don't y'all forget, we have merchandise now. You can get your t shirts and your coffee mugs, and we would greatly appreciate it because podcasts are not free to put on. So please support us that way and subscribe and hit and like our Facebook page and all that stuff that you need to do.

  Carey: 46:21

  All right. Until next time, see y'all later.

Hatching Eggs Extended!

This is a follow up from the spring incubating podcast. Incubating in the winter is different and as long as you understand the why’s, you can be successful all year long.

Incubating Extended

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:05

  ​Hello, and welcome to The Poultry Nerds Podcast, where feathers meet fun. Your podcast hosts are Carey Blackmon and Jennifer Bryant. Together they work hard to bring you the latest news and information from the exciting world of poultry. Sit back and get ready for some egg citing interviews and some foul facts on this episode of Poultry Nerds.

  0:28

  Mhm.

  Carey: 0:35

  So I think this is, we did a while back, we talked about hatching eggs and stuff like that. This is going to get a little more in depth into the nitty gritty. Probably ideally for that person that has been binge listening. To our podcast and now they're like, okay, it's almost time we're getting ready. I want to hatch some eggs.

  Jennifer: 1:04

  I'm kind of nervous about this one because this one is going to be the precursor to my big speech that I'm giving at that convention thing.

  Carey: 1:12

  We can put it out there and see what the listeners think.

  Jennifer: 1:15

  Well, hey Carey, we're here today to talk about incubating again.

  Carey: 1:19

  I see the outline and it starts with a whole bunch of details, you know, in the past we kept it pretty simple.

  Jennifer: 1:28

  Well, our first incubating podcast has become kind of our most popular one, I think, and so I figured it was time to maybe do another one since we're coming up into winter. And winter incubating is kind of different than summer incubating.

  Carey: 1:44

  Winter incubating is different than summer incubating. But I got to admit, I'm actually a huge fan of winter incubating. Why? I like winter incubating for several reasons. Number one, I will put a chicken out of my barn. at five weeks. If it's, I don't care how cold it is, which I live in Alabama, that doesn't get terribly cold, terribly fast. So my rule of thumb is five weeks it's going outside. And even in the wintertime, you put a bird out, you put a chick out at five weeks, it's got feathers. You put it somewhere where it, it, the wind can be blocked, but that's it. You know, I do not do heaters. Um, my barn has a heater in it. That is an industrial heater that's mounted to the ceiling that's designed for heating a large space. So I don't have to worry about it catching on fire. And I have the hatching time brooders that have their heater in on, you know, I run that for a week or so, but after that, nada. And for me, you know, your bird has hybrid vigor. If you put it out in the wintertime at five weeks old and it's 20s, 30s, 40s outside. and it survives. Um, you know, you and I both kind of see a lot of like, we want, we want the survivors, um, because we want that hybrid vigor. We want the best of the best. And as a breeder, you, you should always be trying to improve your flock. Even if you're like Sue, who has amazing Rhode Island Reds, she still works to improve her flock. Or you and your coachings, your coachings, they're, they're huge. They have that beautiful sheen, but you still breed to make them better. And I would say even somebody that has. Barnyard mix. They want, they want their birds to live and they want'em to be survivors. So I like it for that reason. And you know when chicks, when they get cool, they don't die. Mm-Hmm. when they get really hot and they dehydrate really fast, like putting'em outside in the summertime when it's a hundred degrees and the humidity is. about a hundred as well. So it feels like it's 115. You lose them really quick. But if you start them in the wintertime and I don't know, it's always worked out and made for a better bird. And also in the wintertime, birds tend to eat more so they get more nutrition in them. And it makes them grow better. Their feathering turns out better. They're meatier and less fatter. I don't know. That's just me.

  Jennifer: 4:49

  I think it probably has something to do with the environment. Maybe up north might not be as good, but as Southerners, you know, this is our time to shine. You know, we've been holed up for the last two months. Yeah.

  Carey: 5:00

  Yeah. Now I have talked to John up in Vermont and he said seven, eight weeks. He don't care what time of year it is. They go outside.

  Jennifer: 5:13

  So,

  Carey: 5:14

  and I mean, they're, they're not far from snow. Even at the, at the end of September, they, they're probably already getting snow up there.

  Jennifer: 5:25

  Well, if you're just starting out and wanting to learn more about incubating, I would go back and listen to the first one, because that one's going to be more of a starter type incubating that we did back in the spring, this one, I'm going to do a little bit more advanced. because I feel like if you understand why we do some things, then regardless of what incubator you have, if it's a 20 one or a 2, 000 one, you would be able to tweak it to work better if you understand the whys of why we do things. Okay. So, The starting point of any incubator is 99. 5, uh, to, to incubate any bird, I think, isn't it? All birds are 99. 5. I don't know about emus or anything, but I was

  Carey: 6:21

  going to say that would be the only thing that I'm not sure about is emus or ostriches, but I know quail, any kind of chicken, anything that has an egg smaller than 80 grams, normal size poultry, you know, I don't, I don't know where an emu or ostrich would fall into that, but normal poultry. 99. 5 is where it's at.

  Jennifer: 6:46

  Right, and you don't want to go hotter because you're going to bake your eggs and you really don't want to be cooler because you're not giving them enough warmth to basically germinate, I guess would be a good word in there, right? Much like a plant, huh?

  Carey: 7:03

  Yeah,

  Jennifer: 7:03

  you need to cook them. It's

  Carey: 7:04

  not going to start.

  Jennifer: 7:05

  Yep, yep, you need to do it just right. So keep it at 99. 5. Um, and if you're using a Smaller incubator, you know, a cheap one, 20 one, a free one. You found somewhere, put it back in the styrofoam packaging. Cause that will act like an insulator,

  Carey: 7:23

  um, to

  Jennifer: 7:23

  keep the temperature steady. And you're going to want it in a room with consistent temperature. Um, don't put it in your garage or it's going to be hot during the day and cold at night. Put it, um, don't put it in your laundry room on top of your dryer. Um, just set it somewhere away from floor vents, ceiling fans, not near your wood stove. Um, just find somewhere that's going to be very consistent. Um, I had a friend one time that had a big 1502 and she swore that thing was messed up and I went over there to look at it for her and she literally had it beside her back door. So every time you open the back door the cold air would blow on it and I just looked at her and went doo da dee. Let's move this thing away from the back door.

  Carey: 8:14

  So when I first got my hatching time, the CT 180, the most consistent place that I had was in my living room. And I actually got away with that for a little while. Um, my wife did not get upset until about the second or third hatch. Uh, I had a, I had an egg explode.

  Jennifer: 8:40

  And,

  Carey: 8:40

  um, yeah, that was, she was like, uh, uh, you need a barn and that needs to go in it. So, but it was consistent and the humidity is consistent in there as well because, you know, I have my air conditioning running, I have a dehumidifier to keep it down. And that's another thing that's very important that we'll talk about in a little bit.

  Jennifer: 9:04

  Yep. All right. So you've got your incubator going. We're at 99. 5. So now let's, we're going to talk about, um, let's talk about the parts of the egg. So an egg has three parts. You're going to start with the shell with the bloom on it and you do not want to wash that off. If it is a cruddy egg, um, you might could scrape it off, but if it's extra cruddy, just eat that one, wash it, eat it. Just find another clean egg, um, to set. This is where your nesting boxes come in handy, having them clean. So you need to have some clean eggs with the bloom still on them. I'm not going to say a washed egg won't work, because I had a lady who I always hatched a four dozen a year for and she washed them with Dawn and she had a great hatch rate, but I would not recommend that. Um, and then of course you've got your egg yolk. The yolk is going to be the nutrition for the chick and that nutrition comes from the breeder's nutrition. So make sure your breeders are getting proper nutrition. Otherwise your chick won't have what it needs to grow and hatch. The air cell is the last thing, um, that's going to be in the fat end of the egg. And that's why we always tell people to storm point to keep the air cell where it's supposed to be. Now there is a term called saddled air cell. Um, that is where the air cell actually breaks and it kind of floats around in there. The best thing I could tell you to see that is if you take one of your fresh eggs that you do not intend to incubate, and just shake the fire out of it with your hand, just put it in your hand and shake the fire out of it, and then candle it. Well, candle it before you shake it, and then candle it after you shake it, and compare the two. You're gonna see what a saddled egg, uh, saddled air cell looks like. Um, a good air cell is going to stay put in the fat end of the egg. And a saddled one is going to float around like soda bubbles in there, kind of just move around. So just experiment with the kids, let them look at it, then shake the fire out of it and look at it again. You'll learn something. It's called a saddled air cell. All right. So those are your egg parts. Um, now before you even get started, you've got to make sure your fertility is there. Make sure you have a rooster. I have seen that question on some groups. You do have to have a rooster. Kerry's shaking his head.

  Carey: 12:01

  So people, people ask this. And this, this is really sad, but I'm going to admit it. I got a call from my daughter at the time she was 22 and she said, she was at her boyfriend's house and she said, dad, we're having a discussion. I said, okay. And she said, does a hand need a roaster to lay eggs? And I, I said, Tori, I got to go by because I was busy and she calls back and she says, dad, I'm serious. Does a hen need a rooster to lay an egg? And I said, okay, Tori, let me break this down as to the simplest thing that I can. Once a month, you have an egg. And she said, yeah, I said, do you need a guy for that? That that's like a natural part of a woman's body. And she says, oh, OK. I said, all right. Now, if you want to hatch that egg, You've got to have a rooster, but if you don't want to hatch the egg, you don't. And she said, we're never having this conversation again. Thank you. But like, I don't know how many times I've seen that question come up and it's hilarious every time. I'm sorry.

  Jennifer: 13:39

  So you got to have a rooster. That's number one. And then since we're talking about winter incubation, let's talk about frozen eggs for a minute. If you're planning on incubating, you need to collect your eggs pretty regularly, especially if it's below freezing. My, my birds all lay in the morning. So that's pretty easy to go out there and collect them about nine or 10 o'clock. Um, but that's just something you have to decide for yourself where you live, what their schedule is. Um, if they've been frozen, then you need to set those ones aside for you to eat for breakfast. Um, but to incubate them, you need to keep them above freezing. Alrighty, so let's go back in my outline here. I told Keri that I didn't like my Sequence of events. I've been jumping around here. Okay. So candling my biggest pet peeve. Biggest pet Pee is don't handle, don't do, don't handle

  Carey: 14:48

  And I, I understand when you got like a, a 12 or 20 egg incubator like the, they typically, you know, you look at the NR 360, which is probably one of the most common under$200. Um, one's on the market and it's got that nice clear shell on it and you're just sitting there and you're watching them move around and you really want, you're like, what is one in there? But every time you pop that dome, you start over with your temperature and your humidity.

  Jennifer: 15:22

  And

  Carey: 15:23

  I understand out outside when a hen gets up, Uh, that happens, but it's also typically in the summertime when it's already in the nineties for a lot of folks. So there's not a big temperature drop because unless you keep it in the nineties in your house and you know, the humidity is what it is for them, which I had a broody hen hatch some out and she, she wouldn't even get up to eat.

  Jennifer: 15:51

  Yeah. don't know when

  Carey: 15:52

  she got up.

  Jennifer: 15:53

  I think that people think broodies get up more than they do, but the only time my broodies get up is with my foot moving them.

  Carey: 16:01

  Mm

  Jennifer: 16:02

  hmm.

  Carey: 16:03

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 16:04

  All right. So candling, I'm against candling. Now, if you want a candle at lockdown, which is a man made term, not a natural term, but we're going to talk about that in a minute. If you want a candle at lockdown, I will permit it.

  Carey: 16:20

  I know the another, another perfect time for you to candle.

  Jennifer: 16:24

  What?

  Carey: 16:25

  When you're making Balut, when you're making Balut, that's like a vital part of the Balut. But even, even then you only do it at the end of the process.

  Jennifer: 16:37

  Yeah, yeah. So just leave them alone. Let them cook. You paid money for them. You've got time invested in them. Just let them cook. Don't bother them. Okay. So let's talk about the parts of the incubator and that's going to go with candling. So every incubator comes with a water reservoir, vents, a turner, um, and a heater. So the heater needs to keep it constant. The water reservoir is obviously for putting water in it if you need it. Vents, now vents are more important than people think they are. A air. I mean, an egg has air exchange

  Carey: 17:19

  from

  Jennifer: 17:20

  the beginning. And so ventilation is key for birds from day one in the shell still. So you can't close up those vents because they need fresh air. And then the Turner is what keeps the chicks from getting stuck to the membrane. Now, this is only important. Until the chick starts moving on its own. So as time goes on, the turner is really less important. Um, so people get hung up on this, I'm air quoting, lockdown here. Um, they get hung up on when to take the turner out. Don't, don't stress it, okay? Um, So when you do your countdown, when you put those eggs in there, that's zero, the time is zero. Cause they've been in there zero amount of time.

  Carey: 18:19

  Right.

  Jennifer: 18:19

  And then you're going to take that turner out. So for quail, that's roughly day 14. Chickens is 18. Ducks is 25 ish. Turkey is 25 ish. Um, so

  Carey: 18:35

  three to four days ahead of time.

  Jennifer: 18:37

  Exactly. But guess what? If you do it 10 days ahead of time, it's okay, because the chicks in there moving all around.

  Carey: 18:46

  Okay, so here, here's another thing that I don't like about heat incubating in the summertime. Um, even when you gather your eggs every day, it's still real hot outside. So, I actually turned mine, put mine in the hatching baskets four days ahead of time because I'm a little gun shy. Because one time I waited to the evening, so it was like closer to two and barely over the three days. And, um, I picked an egg up out and I set it down and it cracked. And I was like, is this going to be good or bad? And then I see a beak coming out of the hole. And I was like, maybe I should have done this yesterday, not today. Not sometime during that three days before, but I'm, I'm doing four days before now.

  Jennifer: 19:50

  Yeah. Well, you know, do as we say, not as we do. So I said on Fridays, I move on Fridays. Um, so I'm just going to tell you real quick what I do. I sent on Fridays and of course, majority of what I said is quail. So two weeks later, I move them to the hatching basket. They hatch on Mondays. Okay. But if I have chickens in there, which I do right now, they're still going to get moved in two weeks. They're just going to stay in the hatching basket for a whole week instead of just three days. And the reason why I do that is because my brain says, Hey, it's Friday. You have to do something with eggs. It never says, Hey, it's Wednesday. You've got chickens in the incubator. You got to do something with eggs. So everything that I have gets moved on a Friday. So anyway, don't stress over the days that you take the Turner out. Okay. All right. Now, the reason why winter incubating, which is, this is the heart of the podcast now, the reason why we're going to talk about winter incubating is, let's just talk logistics for a minute. In the summertime, we have a lot of humidity, um, heat, rain, humidity. In the wintertime, we have our heaters going. Heaters dry out the air. That's why we put humidifiers on to put moisture back in the air for our own personal sinuses and stuff. So if you kind of look at it that way, we need, um, we need to add humidity back into the air. So if you've been dry hatching in the summer, which we do here in middle Tennessee, I cannot dry hatch once the heat comes on because then the humidity will be too low. Okay. Does that make sense?

  Carey: 21:48

  Yeah, it does. And there's a lot of people out there, like there's whole groups that swear by dry hatching. And I'm going to say summertime, Tennessee South, two thumbs up because it's, I mean, the humidity is like a hundred outside. It's at least going to be 45 to 50. And that's why a lot of people in the South have really good luck dry hatching. Terry, he dry hatches. all the time. He lives in Florida. It's humid there. It works great. Now, up north, when you got your heater running in your hatching room, just to keep it to like 60 so your incubator can stay at 99. 5 like it should, probably not going to have a whole lot of humidity in the air. And your incubator is probably going to go through a lot of water. even to maintain a 40 or 45 percent humidity.

  Jennifer: 23:00

  Yes.

  Carey: 23:00

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 23:02

  Yes. So, depending on what kind of incubator that you have, this is where you're going to have to play with your personal setup. If you live in an old house where the humidity just get sucked into the walls, you're going to have to put in a room humidifier and really watch that water in your humid, in your incubator. But, um, a room humidifier will work. The biggest thing here, and this is where the problem is going to be, is consistency is still the most important thing. So if you can only get it to 35 percent and keep it consistent, then that is what you need to do. Now, I personally incubate at 45%. Um, I wouldn't incubate any higher myself. I think that that becomes an issue and we're going to talk about that in a minute, but consistency. So the more expensive incubator that you have, probably the better control you're going to have over that. Um, but those, the common ones, the farm innovators, the nature right 360s, those are going to have a lot of fluctuations. So you have to work within your, your environment in your house or wherever you have it set to keep it as consistent as you possibly can. Now, if you have early hatches, the air cells are too small, the chicks are sticky. They have enlarged abdomens. They're not pipping on the in, on the side of the egg like they're supposed to. These are all signs that your humidity is too high. and you need to bring it down. If your aerosol is too large, small chicks, splayed legs, they pip and die. Um, then you're too dry. Okay. And a lot of these things can be mistaken for incorrect temperatures. So first and foremost, make sure you're staying consistent at 99. 5. And then if you have these other problems that I just mentioned, then you need to make notes and say, Hey, okay, I did this one at 35 percent and this is what I ended up with. So which way should I go? adjust up or down to fix the issues and you can very easily do that and you can be successful with a more inexpensive incubator. You're just going to have to make notes and pay more attention. So, and then the last point I want to make is the detached air cells like we talked about at the beginning. The best way to hatch those is upright. Put them in an egg carton, leave them in the turner. If you're hatching, if your turner is upright, not a side by side, um, just let them hatch upright. Uh, that keeps the air cell where it's supposed to be in the fat end. And the chick can orientate itself correctly if it's upright like that for its air cell.

  Carey: 26:32

  Got it.

  Jennifer: 26:33

  So, all right. Did I, did I go over that pretty good? People kind of understand the differences.

  Carey: 26:42

  I mean, yeah, if not, you know, they can listen again. Um, I did, I did find out that an emu is 90. 5, not 99. 5.

  Jennifer: 26:59

  Okay, so all you emu readers take note.

  Carey: 27:02

  Uh, yeah, if you're going to try that. Uh, also, you're going to have to be very patient because it is a 56 day process.

  Jennifer: 27:13

  Holy moly.

  Carey: 27:14

  Yeah. That explains, that explains why there's so much. Um, I don't know. It, for me, okay. I like having my turkeys. I'm really thankful for those, but how cool would it be to have a couple of emus running around too?

  Jennifer: 27:34

  I don't know. David won't let me.

  Carey: 27:39

  I mean, who runs that farm? Geez.

  Jennifer: 27:45

  I'll just let you run. If

  Carey: 27:47

  they just showed up.

  Jennifer: 27:49

  Oh, I know, right?

  Carey: 27:50

  I mean, they're cute. He's not going to be like, no, he's gonna be like, oh, where did those come from?

  Jennifer: 27:57

  Well, every time he has surgery, I get a new animal, so.

  Carey: 28:01

  Oh, Lord. Well, he um, that, that explains, that explains it right there. So When the air is drier, uh, you want to put water in it, obviously you want to keep humidity around 40, 45, whatever constant, you know, there's some people I've actually seen people that run it up to 80.

  Jennifer: 28:31

  No.

  Carey: 28:32

  And I'm like, no. Now, for me, I will incubate at 45 and my hatcher is at 50, is what it starts. And I say what it starts because when, when I put them in the hatcher, it's set at 50. Now, after a couple of birds pip and things start hatching out, man, your humidity is going to shoot way up. No way around that. It happens. That's what you want to happen. That's why they need the vent holes so the fans can blow all that stuff out. But as far as you manually running it up that high, you're going to drown your birds.

  Jennifer: 29:18

  Yeah, anytime you get even close to 70 or above you need to open those vents. Now, I know some of the cheaper incubators don't have vents And I myself started with a cheap incubator years ago And what I would do, um, I used to wear little readers, you know, like from the dollar store And I would put the earpiece in the corner of the lid just to crack it enough to drop it because I mean think about it when you get out of um, I don't know. When you get out of a sauna, you can't dry your hair in that humidity of that room, dry and fluff either. So you need to dry it out so that chick can dry and fluff.

  Carey: 30:00

  So the first incubator that I had in my house was probably about 10, maybe 12 years ago, my son wanted to incubate some, and he brought home one of the GQL styrofoam incubators. And. When they started, like, you know, before they even pipped, you can hear the chicks inside the eggs, like, Hey, I'm fixing to come out, you know, making that chirping sound when that happened, the humidity shot way up. So what I did was I picked up a corner, stuck a pencil in there and let it rest on that and that dropped it down. I mean, it was, it was still. A lot higher than it started out at, but it dropped it down to where we had a pretty successful hatch and, um, some of those, there's two of those birds that are actually still alive that I know of. So, yeah,

  Jennifer: 31:02

  well, you have to make yourself notes. So if you're just starting out. Just put, um, I mean, a notepad beside your incubator and write down anything. That's how I learned,

  Carey: 31:16

  um,

  Jennifer: 31:16

  what worked and what didn't work. And I've been incubating probably 14 years now at this point, maybe.

  Carey: 31:26

  Probably the last tip that I have for somebody is if you do, Buy one of those and, and I'm not knocking a cheap incubator by no means. If you buy a 20 or 200 or even a 1, 000 incubator, the first set of eggs you put in there needs to be barnyard, something somebody gave you, something out of your own pen, something like that, because you're going to have to dial in. You know, which, how far do I open these vents? Which vent holes do I need to open? You're going to have to dial all that in. So don't do that on 150 a dozen set of hatching eggs. Don't, don't run the risks. Um, I know somebody that did and they got really lucky because the person sent three extra. So they had 15 eggs and they still had 12 hatch out, but they also started with the 1000 model and not the 20 model if the humidity and temperature wasn't kept consistent regularly. They might've had to hatch out. So when you're dialing in your incubator, don't use expensive hatching eggs.

  Jennifer: 32:52

  Yes. So I just thought of something, maybe this would help if you're new to it or still trying to tweak your stuff. Um, keep that notepad right there. But when you, when you make yourself notes, um, put down the humidity and of the incubator, but also put down the temperature and humidity of the room that it's in. Because that information would help you later, because incubating in January with gas heat on is going to be tremendously different than July with the air conditioner on. And In your incubator, your model in your environment is going to be very different than mine because I incubate in the barn with a concrete floor, a bare concrete floor. So, my humidity stays up more down there.

  Carey: 33:46

  Um,

  Jennifer: 33:47

  so I, I have, I air to the higher humidity and have to work to keep it down. Yeah. So, and then it's also going to depend on your nutrition. Where the eggs shipped, were they yours? Are they, I mean, there's so many variables that go into it. And, and while we like to sit here and tell you exactly how to incubate, in all honesty, we can only give you guidelines and information, but it's up to you with your eggs, your environment, your incubator to make notes and figure out what works for you.

  Carey: 34:26

  Ultimately, You have to fight yourself, fight the urge to want to candle them, leave them in there, let your incubator do its job, wait your, wait your time and see what happens. Make notes and good luck with it.

  Jennifer: 34:47

  Yeah. I want to say one more thing about candle and before we leave, when you have to open that incubator to candle, not only are you changing the temperature, but you're shocking the egg with a different humidity. And so if you visualize the egg holding its temperature and holding its humidity inside of it, and then a blast of cold air hits it, it's going to want to, um, Condensate even Or it's going to want to acclimate to the new temperature. And so every single time you open that incubator, if you are candling 15 eggs, that's 15 shocks every time you open it. Right. So if you paid money for those eggs and you want them to hatch, don't candle them. If you're new to incubating and you're trying to learn by all means, candle them, but also know that your hatch rate is going to be less. I mean, I candled the fire out of some duck eggs when I first started. That's, duck eggs are the coolest things to candle because the shells are so clear

  Carey: 35:53

  when

  Jennifer: 35:53

  you candle them. But, I mean, these, if you're trying to candle Moran eggs and you're a newbie, don't even try. Just set them and forget them. Just leave them alone.

  Carey: 36:04

  Yeah, to candle Moran eggs, if you have a good Moran that's laying a seven or darker egg, you're You need a very bright light that, I mean, may blind the, blind the chick inside because them eggs are dark.

  Jennifer: 36:25

  Yep. Just leave them alone till they hatch.

  Carey: 36:29

  That's right. Let them hatch.

  Jennifer: 36:31

  All right. Well, if you guys have questions, need further information, find us at poultrynerds. com. I'm going to actually link some, an article that I got some of this information from in the show notes. So you can find it there to reference, but let us know if you need any more information.

  Carey: 36:51

  Have a good one.

  Jennifer: 36:52

  Thanks. Bye.

  Carey: 36:53

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you can receive the new episodes right when they are released. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds@gmail.com and share your thoughts about the show. Be sure to also give us a like and a follow on Facebook. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it eggciting. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

Talking Crevecour with Michelle Burns

Michelle is back and talking Crevs. The devil birds I call them! What a fun episode.

Crevs

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hello, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds podcast, where feathers meet fun. Your podcast hosts are Carey Blackmon and Jennifer Bryant. Together they work hard to bring you the latest news and information from the exciting world of poultry. Sit back and get ready for some eggciting interviews and some foul facts on this episode of Poultry Nerds. Thanks for tuning in.

  Jennifer: 0:31

  We're here with Michelle Sullivan Burns. Welcome back, Michelle. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. And today we're going to talk about your other breed. So the first time we talked about Langshans. And this time we're going to talk about Crevacours. Crevacour.

  Michelle: 0:50

  Crev

  Jennifer: 0:51

  kia.

  Michelle: 0:52

  What is the

  Carey: 0:53

  right way to say it? You

  Michelle: 0:54

  can say Crevacour. I've heard Crevacaware. Crevies. Crevs. Crev kia.

  Carey: 1:00

  Oh, yeah. Crev, that's me right there.

  Michelle: 1:03

  Crev kia. It means broken heart. Aww. In French.

  Carey: 1:07

  Aww.

  Michelle: 1:08

  And yes, say aww, because their story is rather inspirational. Aww. On who they are or what they are for a bird. But yeah,

  Jennifer: 1:17

  we all need inspirational stories. So tell us about

  Michelle: 1:21

  this okay long story short french breed one of the older french breeds up there with was it, some people say La Fletche, La Flesh, I'm up there with them. Okay World War II, the Nazis are coming through northern France, through France. And they came down through Creve, which is just not even I, if I looked at it correctly in the map was about 30 kilometers from Normandy. And then they came through, of course they were eating and pillaging everything come to, as they went through those towns, the townspeople took them and went underground with them of these birds because they are a dual purpose bird and they saved them from being killed off pretty much. At one point in America. In the USA here, there was less than 100 of them. Great quality. Yes. And that was only in, let's say, I want to say that was like 2008, 17 or 18. Oh, wow. Yes. Oh, extremely recent. Extremely recent. Yes. Of course there's more, that's more of just a shortened version of the story, but it's rather inspirational of how how they are. They're part of the Livestock Conservancy, which I forgot to mention that about Langston too. They're both so Krebs are on the Livestock Conservancy right now. They're not like under critical or anything, but they used to be at critical level. So just from 2017 to now, there's over a thousand of them in the USA now.

  Jennifer: 2:55

  I have to tell you, I had to look up in my standard of perfection, the picture of them, and, yeah. You when we were texting back and forth, I was like, Oh, I know that bird. That's the devil bird. Because it's comb. So what kind of comb is that? That is a V comb. The V comb. I'm sorry? It's a V comb. Just

  Michelle: 3:18

  A V comb. Just let's say, LaFletche A whodun, some polish. Yep.

  Jennifer: 3:25

  It's a V comb. So that we're going to get a little technical just because I want to be nerdy for a second. So that one, is it recessive like a single cone? Or no, they all have it.

  Michelle: 3:37

  They should know. They should all have it. If you get, don't get me wrong, they come out funky if there's too much weird breeding going on. Okay. I have one that, but yes It's it's there, it's, and sometimes they're big, and sometimes they're little, but the bigger, not too big, but yeah, they're there.

  Jennifer: 3:54

  So since this is a podcast and they can't see us, they look like devil horns to me in the picture.

  Michelle: 3:59

  LaFletche, just like LaFletche, yes, exactly. They are. That's I'm excited when I saw them. And that's how that's how that started actually. I know we talked about that before, like, how do you get your start? I was literally, I saw something post on marketplace two roosters for free. And I messaged her and I said, Oh, you have two roosters. And this was like January of 18. And I said, she's literally two streets over. Oh, hold on two country streets over. That way. And and I went over there. This is exactly what I said. She goes, I go that one's a Polish. And I go, and I looked down, I go, what the hell is that? And literally, what the hell is that? And she's I have no idea. And she looked it up and we did, I'm like, I think it's a, she goes, she said at the, it's a crevy crever. I'm like, okay. I, so I took it home and I named him Tommy Lee. Because I am, I'm a predator of the eighties. 1987, I was 14 years old in love with Motley Crue and Metallica. So the heavy metal person in me came out and I go, I need that bird. I need it now. And it's black. It's fantastic. And I need it. And I took it home. And he literally he only just died just like literally this year. So he like outlived, like all these other birds. And but with regards to that's how I found out more about hatchery. He, He is the one that started it. Tommy Lee. He's the one that started for me understanding hatchery to quality or hatchery or breeder quality. I then I did get another crab from a friend of mine, another female. I named her Pam. So Tommy Lee.

  Carey: 5:30

  Nice.

  Michelle: 5:31

  Pam is still with us. Pam is still with us. Pam and Tommy Lee had a baby. I named him Lefarious. I called him and I looked at them and then I'm like, Can I get better? And I want to get better. I want to get that breed better. Who do I talk to? Asked around. And then of course, Sue Dobson's name came up and that's how I got in touch with someone referred me to Sue. I reached out. And then I got some eggs from her and that was 2000 fall 19. Yeah, fall 19, 20 or spring. No, I did get in touch with her fall. I got new, I got eggs from her in 20, early 20. And Ooh, that was interesting because we started, that was, no, it was 21. It was 21 because we lost power. We lost power. It was the The Armageddon year. Remember we had that real bad storm. Okay. So it was 21. We lost power and one egg hatched and I named him Neo and Neo is actually, if you just got, if you saw Jeff Duguay's book on Paul Crested, that's him, he's on the front. He's a, that's my Neo. He was the only one that hatched. And I was addicted because when he got bigger and I sent that picture to Sue and she goes, that, that is what you want. Because Tommy Lee looks nothing like that. He looked, he was, hatchery quality of course, he was smaller, his head was smaller, he had these two little boop, and then Neo came out and he's over here rockin it, and I'm like, I need more of these birds. I fell in love with him. Neo died that summer. That was, that's when we started having really hot summers, but I took La Faire to my first show in West Texas. I took one bird. I went to the West Texas State West Texas Fair and Rodeo, which is not the Abilene show, just the regular, like a really smaller show. I won my first show. I didn't win my first show. Excuse me. I won my first blue ribbon. I was hooked showing completely. I went and I got my picture taken. Like people do with their cows. And someone goes, are you getting your picture right taken? I go, you're damn right I'm getting my picture taken. With my chicken, who I just showed my first ever show. I won a blue ribbon. I don't care how many people were there. I was the only one with a crev in the continental class. That's not the point. That's not the point. I was like, I'm, literally, I got hooked immediately. And I said, Sue I have to have this breed. I have to have more of them. I must dominate the world. And I'm like, I need them. I need them. And from there I got, she I got three fabulous females from her. Fabulous. Come to find out, one of them, which, Sue has a bad, not saying, I call it a bad habit for her, but she likes to give out her best. Um, birds to people. She gave me her Shawnee winner, Oklahoma state winner of 2020. She gave her to me. I'm like, are you kidding me? I named her Shawnee. Shawnee is still alive. She has, she's produced a lot of babies for me. And from there between Shawnee and Hara, I have won multiple large fowls, multiple champion continentals here in Texas, and I'm straight up addicted. I. CREV all the way, power to the crest, you

  Jennifer: 8:49

  can't pronounce it. Just call it

  Michelle: 8:50

  CREV, CREV, just call them CREV, C R E V CREV. I love them. I know I'm talking a lot. I could talk about these guys even longer. I think just from their the way they look, first of all, I find them. Intriguing, I find them just where the Lancashire was more statuesque, these guys look a little I know it's gonna sound funny, they look apocalyptic to me, almost like steampunk. I have to, it's just, and and their requirements are the same almost for Langston. When I say that I'm talking about, for the black feathering for showing, gonna have more of that green beetle color, no purple. And they are a talker at shows. Okay.

  Jennifer: 9:31

  So let's. Let's describe these birds since people are just listening. Cause you're talking with your hands for everybody that's listening, talking with their hands. I'm not

  Michelle: 9:40

  sorry. I'm not sorry. Oh yes. I'm sorry if you're listening.

  Jennifer: 9:43

  So these are large fowl.

  Michelle: 9:45

  Yes. And they come in Bantam. Oh,

  Carey: 9:48

  yeah. Okay. They do

  Michelle: 9:50

  come in Bantam and that's. Angela Cruz or Angela Hand is working on that.

  Jennifer: 9:57

  So to me, they look a lot like a Polish.

  Michelle: 10:00

  Okay. Interesting about that. There's no Polish in them. They've actually had DNA testing done on them. There's no Polish. They're their own breed.

  Jennifer: 10:09

  Side by side in the SOP. And I have them laid out right here. And the tail of course is bigger, but golly, they look just like a Polish.

  Michelle: 10:17

  But they're deeper. They should be very deep. They should be very dorking deep. I've heard that term before. They should be, when you look at the side, we're talking about, you should only see this much of their leg. You shouldn't see, like Polish, you see this much of their leg in a crib, you should only see the like knee down instead of thigh.

  Jennifer: 10:36

  Okay. I see the deeper chest. Okay. See the deeper chest. Yeah. Okay. But for just people listening they know what most people know what a Polish looks like, the big palm on top of their head.

  Michelle: 10:47

  It's

  Jennifer: 10:49

  true.

  Michelle: 10:49

  Very called globulous. It's very, This way where, okay. So the difference with Craig, if you look the whole, even their eyes and then their beard should be covering their waddles and their ear lobes.

  Jennifer: 11:06

  Okay. So they have a beard. Does a Polish have a beard? I don't, I'm not familiar with the Polish coming both bearded and non bearded. Okay. So I'm looking at this. It looks like he has a beard and he has like big poofy cheeks. Yes. Yes. And then he has hair, right?

  Michelle: 11:22

  Females my females have better beards than the males. Absolutely. They look like

  Jennifer: 11:28

  yeah They look like they're from an 80s hair band.

  Michelle: 11:31

  Thank you. Yes

  Jennifer: 11:33

  What color do you race and what color did they come in?

  Michelle: 11:37

  Okay, they come in they we're talking black is the main variety approved by the apa in france though in france You'll see them in cuckoo, blue, and white. I would love a cuckoo crev. Oh my god. That's just like a yellow, like

  Jennifer: 11:55

  a lemon. No, cuckoo

  Michelle: 11:56

  like a barred rock. Sorry.

  Jennifer: 11:59

  Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, cool. I'm friends with a

  Michelle: 12:03

  couple of the guys with, through, through Sue. The French guys over there that show them. It's I was like, yeah, they come in some great, I'm like, I need those too. But, my husband would kill me. Yeah, the cuckoo color is crazy, but the white is they, on the white though, they call them sport. That's a sport, if you see the white.

  Jennifer: 12:20

  And maybe Carey knows more about this than I do from Rip, but I think anything that, that throws out a white, it could be a deer, a whale, it doesn't matter what it is. If it just throws out a white one, that's just called a sport. Oh, it's always

  Michelle: 12:34

  called a sport. Oh I learned something new. Okay.

  Jennifer: 12:36

  What is, it's slang, right? Calling it a sport?

  Michelle: 12:40

  I think that's a good question. I've just always, I've only heard the term sport. I've only heard the term sport only used in crev. I've never heard the word sport because white lynchian or white lynchian, because it's a printed improved color. I've never heard that with regards to crowd. Never. I've only heard the word sport.

  Jennifer: 12:58

  Yeah, I think that's just what they're calling their anomaly. So I I had my, I have black coachins. And I had two whites hatched out last year. They both died. Within, one died within a day and the other one died like within two weeks. But yeah, they weren't right. Something was off with them.

  Michelle: 13:15

  They're pretty cool looking. Cause if you even look at that APA, even if you just look at CREV, like if you type in CREV or on like just an image search on Google, you're going to get varieties between like 1850 and 1880. You'll see them come like this, but the males, But then you see some that are crazy hair. So interpretation on that, because I have some that are wispy, that they go back like this, but man, Vinny up there, his name is Vincent Van Gogh. One of my favorites.

  Jennifer: 13:42

  You would have been perfect to start our YouTube channel with because of all your

  Michelle: 13:47

  descriptions. I like to keep going. Okay. So like I said okay. So there's Vincent Van Gogh, there's Gus. Shawnee. I've got Vivian. No, Vivian passed away. So I got her kid Sophia. Oh yeah, I've got Tiberius. Maximus. Keep going. I can keep going. I get all the cool names, but

  Jennifer: 14:03

  yeah. Tell us about the birds themselves. So

  Michelle: 14:06

  what are the black skin, it looks like? They do not have black skin. It's gray. Okay. It's like a light gray. I can't. Yeah. It's like gray. Not like silky black. No. More like just an off. It's not white. It's not white. It's just gray. It looks like they have really bad dry skin, but they don't. You're I love

  Carey: 14:31

  the descriptions.

  Michelle: 14:32

  Thank you.

  Carey: 14:34

  They're spot on.

  Michelle: 14:36

  what's interesting is they do lay a cream egg. A cream colored egg. They don't lay a lot and they're horrible mothers. Except for one. I have one girl that went broody on me. So I gave her five Langston babies that I hatched out from my boy Maximus. So she has those babies. She's been pretty good. They're horrible. They lay less than maybe 150 eggs a year. They like to die. They'll just decide to die anytime. Look, I'm three days old. I'm dead. Look, I'm six weeks old. I'm dead. Nope, they die. Then they wonder why their numbers are so low. Because they keep freaking dying. Okay,

  Jennifer: 15:20

  so should they live to adulthood? How big do they get?

  Michelle: 15:24

  Okay okay, Vinny. It is big. Vinny is not, he's big. I'd say Vinny is, if last time I weighed him, I think he's right at six and a half, seven pounds. Eight pounds is really nice. Because again, they are a dual purpose bird. Originally they are, you can eat them. But they're not like thick heavy. They're just like, but you can eat them. It'll be a decent snack. It's not it's like

  Jennifer: 15:46

  chicken, right?

  Michelle: 15:47

  It's like chicken, but yeah, they're fun. I like them. Okay. Their characteristic is all over the place. This is probably why I like them. They have ADHD. I have ADHD. We get along fabulously. They are spastic in the cages. Now it depends on the bird. Sometimes you want to go double cage with them. Sometimes you can't. Vinny, I can go double cage. His tail is long. His tail goes way beyond. Actually in the book that Jeff just did there's that picture of Vinny with that tail. That's him. No, that, yeah, that's him. That's Gus. No, that's Gus. Either way, that tail is so long. It seems like it just goes like this. And but they're not they're skittish. a little psychotic, you know, and I've tried everything to try to tame that down in them. But however, I do have noticed though, other than me losing Neo The heat has not really bothered them. Oh, that's nice in Texas. And same for Langshin. I've been trying to, there's a part of me that is almost letting them stay out there and whoever wins the game of life out there. When I, because if I can get me some good heat tolerant, large fowl of Krev and Langshin, that would, that's a huge deal down here. If I can get them to get that gene going where it, it was 105. Five. And Tiberius is still out there hanging out inside the fam. He's this is great.

  Jennifer: 17:14

  I'm doing the same thing with the Cochins, they can't I had them shipped down from New York

  Michelle: 17:19

  and

  Jennifer: 17:19

  I'm four generations in and I need them to be heat tolerant, I got the heat.

  Michelle: 17:24

  They all have the cages. When it comes to that, then, like I said, that could be a whole separate podcast just around solar fans. I have got, there's going to be at least 500, 600 Watts out there pumping out fans and big fans. Big fans. You're talking like fans off of trucks. My husband's a truck mechanic. We're talking like off of Mack trucks. Those big, hooked straight to, sun up, sun down. Those fans are blowing. Even on my crevs.

  Jennifer: 17:52

  These flighty, spastic, pom headed birds, can you free range them, or will they stand out there and wait for a hawk to come get them?

  Michelle: 18:00

  Oh, no! They will free range. They do very well free way, free range. Extremely well. I don't, on those specifically I have not chose to eat in any of my crevs. I just let the gate open and go, good luck, enjoy. But I keep them. But, everybody stayed. And they do not get, they're pretty smart though. That's the best part. They're smart. They're very smart though. Everybody on my, so my other roosters will get taken by a hawk or we have an owl problem here. But no, they're pretty on that end. They're pretty smart. They'll stick around.

  Jennifer: 18:32

  So obviously they've been accepted by the APA because I'm looking at their pictures in the

  Michelle: 18:36

  book.

  Jennifer: 18:37

  Okay. And you show them in the show. Can you buy these birds from a hatchery? Can you get hatchery quality? Actually,

  Michelle: 18:46

  McMurray has them. Hoover has them. And I think between the two, McMurray has a better quality.

  Jennifer: 18:55

  On a side note, and I don't know if this is true about the Krebs, but I read in the newsletter the other day from the APA that McMurray Hatchery is getting more flock certified. I didn't read what breeds they were. But yeah, maybe you should edit that out. I don't know. Yeah. All right. And then dual purpose, you said you haven't eaten yours yet.

  Michelle: 19:19

  I've no, but you can though. If you follow the Livestock Conservancy they, on their pages, they talk about butchering them and they are, and at one point they are a delicacy. They're, their flesh is a little different. I have not experienced it, but I've read. That their flesh isn't like, how like you would talk about chili on the other ones, they say they're not chewy. It's like I say over and it would be a delicacy where that is. I've only read that once and it was on the livestock conservancy. So I don't know where they got that reference. That'd be interesting. It may not

  Jennifer: 19:53

  taste like chicken.

  Michelle: 19:55

  It tastes like a better chicken than regular chicken. I'm just teasing a better non chicken than chicken, a better chicken that tastes like chicken, but not really, but better than chicken. This is great. I'm going to go home with a stomach

  Carey: 20:09

  ache. You are

  Michelle: 20:10

  cracking me up. You

  Jennifer: 20:12

  know, hopefully our listeners are cracking up driving down the road too and then the people in the other car are looking at them weird. I'll send you a link to

  Michelle: 20:21

  another podcast, my first ever podcast, that was drinking with chickens. I'll send you that because we talked about how someone's decided to steal an egg from Out of the Fort Worth Stock Show. Some actually, yeah. We'll talk about

  Jennifer: 20:36

  it.

  Michelle: 20:36

  So

  Carey: 20:38

  that, you would think that sounds crazy. But that actually, there were some issues with that at the Ohio National this past year.

  Michelle: 20:46

  Really?

  Carey: 20:47

  Yes. See,

  Jennifer: 20:53

  I don't even think like that. Why?

  Carey: 20:55

  So As a breeder, when you have your bird there and an egg comes out, you'll take it and you'll put it in the cage or in something right below it where your stuff is on the table. There are people that were putting them in their pockets and keep walking.

  Jennifer: 21:09

  For those people, those are probably not fertilized eggs because the only way to keep a bird in condition is to not let a rooster in with'em. Yeah.

  Michelle: 21:18

  Haha on you, right?

  Carey: 21:19

  Yeah, really.

  Michelle: 21:22

  My audio, my, my video got stuck there. That's weird. I don't like it. But yeah that's actually the per and then the person who did that actually at the stock show, it was a, it wasn't even a breeder. It's just a regular per because that's open up to everybody put it in their pocket and then took pictures of what they did, said what they did. And posted it on Facebook. And another thing you might know about me is I am a screenshot lover. I will screenshot the shit out of that. And I kept that, I kept it. And I shared it with a few friends. I said, look what I just found. And it decided to blow up a little bit and she got kicked out of the group that she was the admin in here in Fort Worth. And it was a big thing.

  Jennifer: 22:05

  I'm going to tell you a little story. I have a follower of my farm page out of Texas and she sent me a picture out of one of the local groups down there. And I was so amazed by this picture. This lady who, and I don't have a clue who it was had a really nice house. You could tell by the finishings and the chandeliers and stuff. And she put up a chain link dog kennel in her dining room underneath the chandelier and put her chickens in there because it's too hot outside. I posted a picture of what not to do. I did not know who that picture belonged to. I have no clue who it belonged to. Lady posted the picture posted. Apparently she was a follower too. And she's I didn't even know.

  Michelle: 22:56

  Oh my. Oh, y'all

  Jennifer: 22:58

  are a little cuckoo down there in Texas. But she deleted her comments really quickly.

  Michelle: 23:05

  That's what happens. And then people obviously, they delete things and, okay. But yeah, screenshots last, I put that, I go hashtag screenshots are forever.

  Jennifer: 23:13

  Yeah. so if somebody wanted to get started with these crevs crevicore, how do you get started with them? Contact you for, I

  Michelle: 23:25

  do, I do breed. There are people that are very selective on who they give their eggs to, because we do, when I say selective, if you want just a regular I have no problem, giving you a couple of my culls, Hey, have a couple of these, but I'm pretty, I don't mean to be selective, but this breed particularly that has less than X amount anyways, that's out there. I just don't want them to just, I don't want them all out there willy nilly. I really don't. And talking with Sue, she's pretty much the same. I will troll someone's page until they're, all trolled out. If I'm going to send them, eggs or even birds, but they, on the livestock conservancy, you can actually go, there is a breeder network, but if you want quality seat, Sue has French line,

  Carey: 24:11

  Chris.

  Michelle: 24:12

  That's the thing you can get. You've been, they've already been bred down, but so on other, like I said, there's hatchery quality. Now they did probably, we found out they're putting Polish in with them. And the main thing, the only reason how you can tell you they're putting Polish with them is because you could tell by their crest, because I really, you can look right at that and go, that has Polish in it. You can look at the legs and go, that has Polish in it. You can look at the body and say, okay, that has Polish in it. And I don't. If you don't want that, then you have to go to a breeder. Sue also, I think has not, I think, excuse me. I know Sue has also given not given, but sold whatever to, to Angela Hand. She's up in Missouri. She has her line and then I have her line as well, which is the French line. And literally we're talking eggs from France. That were brought here and actually, hatched out. And it's amazing how that happened. And then, so I have all those lines. So I never want to try to get something not from Sue personally. I don't want to ruin that line because once I, once you introduce another line like that, especially in that bird, it does make a difference. However, I have noticed though, that the more with that breed, I, you do want to, I need to break away from just not saying mother to son, but maybe skip a generation or two. Because I just got one that was just hatched out what this past spring. No, no fall. She looks like, she's been road hard and put away wet, her whole head is messed up. Her crest only shows on one half of her head. She's got four V combs on her head. But then her sister came out awesome. So if you don't have the right V comb immediately, you can kiss it. Goodbye. Honestly, you could just, let it be free range or whatever, but for

  Jennifer: 26:02

  them.

  Michelle: 26:02

  Oh yeah. There's the, there is the North American Crevecour breeders club on Facebook, of course the livestock conservancy, but mostly it's the North American and then yeah, North American. Crevecour Breeders, and then there's the Livestock Crevecour Conservation Project as well. And that's actually run by Jeannette, who's part of the Livestock Conservancy in Georgia. Gotcha. Yep.

  Jennifer: 26:29

  Anything else you would like to add?

  Michelle: 26:32

  They're in the Continental class and, for a long time, it was like me and some Polish in the continental. So it's great if you can get some more people in that continental class, there's a lot of people in Asiatic, like the Langston is in the Asiatic, but man, I'd love to add that if people really want to show that at least get into that continental. Class, it's really, it's an interesting class. You have the Lankshin in there, the Krev and the Polish, so that's it. That's what you're, that's, I call it that funky beard and crest group, laughter

  Jennifer: 27:07

  It was great having you. Kerry, do you have anything you want to ask about these birds?

  Carey: 27:14

  No, I'm good.

  Jennifer: 27:16

  All right. Thank you for explaining them to us, because I didn't know anything about them. They're pretty cool looking. They're pretty cool.

  Michelle: 27:24

  Absolutely, guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hope you have a great week. And my first show down here is August 31st, believe it or not, out there in West, out there in West Texas. So we'll have

  Carey: 27:36

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you can receive the new episodes right when they are released. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com and share your thoughts about the show. Be sure to also give us a like and a follow on Facebook. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it exciting. This is Kerry signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

How Your Birds Breathe w/Dr. Klaus Hopster DMV PD PhD DECVAA

One of our favorite shows!!!! We really get nerdy on this one and learn so much. It is always great to understand the foundation and how stuff works.

Bird's Respiratory system

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• Transcript

  Carey: 0:00

  Hello, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds podcast, where feathers meet fun. Your podcast hosts are Carey Blackmon and Jennifer Bryant. Together they work hard to bring you the latest news and information from the exciting world of poultry. Sit back and get ready for some eggciting interviews and some foul facts on this episode of Poultry Nerds. Thanks for tuning in.

  Jennifer: 0:31

  The D-E-C-V-A-A, what is that?

  Dr. Hopster: 0:34

  That means that I have a European specialization in veterinary anesthesia. So I I went to vet school in Germany where I'm from and that's the DMV. It's. Doctor of veterinary medicine or Dr. Medved. And then then I decided to focus on the academic side of academia with a stronger focus on teaching a small focus on research and a quite small focus on clinics. That is the PD. So that's a three year program that is comparable to a master's in education. It's quite specific for German speaking countries. And then and then my specialized training in veterinary anesthesia, that is the DECVAA and which means a Diplomat of the European College of Veterinary Anesthesia and Analgesia. And then the PhD is a regular PhD.

  Jennifer: 1:39

  Oh, that's just normal. Just run of the mill stuff, huh? And then you made the mistake of sending me an email with your big long signature on the email and I tackled you for a podcast

  Dr. Hopster: 1:50

  interview. That is correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I reached out because we figured we couldn't figure out why they were not laying.

  Jennifer: 2:00

  Are they doing well now?

  Dr. Hopster: 2:01

  They are doing incredibly well. And I'm really impressed on their dependence on the game bird's layers feed. Because we did what you recommended, right? We changed their light regimen. And so we changed coop position a tiny little bit and switched the food and it took about a week and they started laying really well an egg a day per quail. And and then. After, I would say, two months, maybe, there was a switch up when we ordered the food and we got not the game bird layer feed, but normal game bird feed, which we didn't really realize and And the only reason we did realize this switch in food is because they stopped laying after about 10 days.

  Jennifer: 2:43

  Interesting. You got them straightened back out now though?

  Dr. Hopster: 2:48

  Yeah. Yeah. We switched food and now they are back in the game.

  Jennifer: 2:52

  Yeah. I don't, I know. I never recommend the game bird layer for the Coturnix. It seems like it always causes issues, but I do have it for the button quail because they need it, that high metabolism, they need it. I didn't bring you here to talk about your quail, necessarily. So we we asked you to be here to talk about just the birds respiratory system so you can get a better idea of how it works and why it's different from ours. So can you overview that for people who are new to birds?

  Dr. Hopster: 3:27

  Yeah, I can have to say that the respiratory system of birds is it's from an evolutionary perspective quite impressive. Their gas exchange design is substantially more effective than ours. The only species that might be maybe a little bit more effective in that regards are fish. Which is likely because they live in a really low oxygen environment. But what birds can do due to their very special on a, anatomical design of the respiratory system is they can make gas exchange and they can uptake oxygen during inspiration and during expiration. And that makes them twice as effective as us. Just Just as a reminder, right? The way we breathe is we inhale and then our lungs expand from the negative pressure that our chest develops during inspiration, right? When we do this deep breath in. So the lung expands, which if we want to simplify, it looks a little bit like one big balloon. So this balloon expands, oxygen enters and then We make gas exchange, which is the transfer of oxygen from the air into the blood. And then we exhale. And during exhalation, we exhale the gas now that has not much oxygen left and a little bit of CO2. So our oxygen uptake is when you look In the respiratory cycle quite short out of one minute, it's about 10 to 12 seconds that be effectively take oxygen into our blood. And that seems to work quite well for us. So what birds do in contrast is they have and. Some people might have heard that, right? They have a set of so called air sacs, a total of nine that is pretty similar amongst all birds. So they have nine air sacs and and so four in the front and then one at the side and then four in the back. And what happens during inspiration is the gas, um, enters the lungs like it would with us and it enters all air sacs. And during inspiration, it flows by a tubing system. So birds lungs are not a big balloon. They are more tubes. And while it flows by these tubes we, they do gas exchange, right? So there's blood in the one direction, there's one tube and air in the other direction. That's the other tube. And while they basically pass by each other, oxygen transfers from the air into the blood. And as I mentioned, so all air sacs get filched during inspiration, but the back air sacs, the caudal ones. They basically get all the air that bypasses the lungs. Whereas the front air sacs, they get all the fresh air that is not that has not bypassed the lungs. So at the end of Inspiration where the bird already did some gas exchange via this tubular system, there is now one set of air that is filling the caudal air sacs that is basically used. And there's a fresh set of air that is filling the cranial, the frontal air sacs that is still fresh. And then during expiration, the gas from the caudal air sacs gets exhaled, and the gas from the frontal air sacs again bypasses the lung while it's getting exhaled. So the bird is abled, with this very special and quite fascinating anatomical design, to to fill the lung with fresh air and make gas exchange and uptake oxygen during inspiration as we would, but also during expiration. So they basically constantly have fresh air bypassing the blood and they can constantly uptake oxygen.

  Jennifer: 7:23

  Super interesting. I followed all of that.

  Carey: 7:27

  I caught myself taking notes!

  Jennifer: 7:30

  So the reason for the air sacs is what?

  Dr. Hopster: 7:34

  So the main reason for the air sacs is a, it cools the birds down, right? There's always air, which is at best room temperature. So it cools the birds down. And the other reason for the air sacs is it's basically a constant reservoir of fresh oxygen. And these are the two main mechanisms of the air sacs.

  Jennifer: 7:56

  Does it have anything to do with their ability to fly like their buoyancy or anything like that? Or no,

  Dr. Hopster: 8:04

  no. Okay. A bird could fly without this complex air sacs system. That, that is purely mechanics and their wings. So the air sacs really do these two main things. Which is a huge advantage when it comes to oxygen uptake, and to meet their high metabolic needs, because it's a quite energy consuming event, flying. It comes with disadvantages as well, right? Because people could ask if they are such. such a strong evolutionary advantage of having this kind of lung or respiratory system, why wouldn't all animals have that? And things that the birds can't do with their lungs, for example, is filter as precisely as we can do that with our very complex airway system. That's why we are much more robust when it comes to upper airway contamination, which might be something we want to touch later, right? Aspergillosis, for example. We have a much, much better developed airway immune system. The way our airways are built they become very small. And the airflow really drops. from fast to really slow, which helps filtering all these particles out. So that is one big advantage of our airway system in contrast to birds. That's why they sometimes don't do well if they fly and have really extensive gas exchange. And another reason what we do with our lungs that birds, for example, can't do, and that is relevant for me as an anesthesiologist is we use our lungs to metabolize things. drugs to get rid of them, for example, propofol, a quite popular or well known anesthetic. The older ones of us might remember Michael Jackson and the propofol incident. So our lungs help us metabolizing propofols. Birds can't do that. So they are much more sensitive to certain drugs that require pulmonary metabolism. And then the third big thing that our lungs do is they store a lot of blood. It's basically a blood reservoir in case that we have to mobilize. And that is something that the birds also can't do. So it's a trade, right? We decided we have lesser metabolic needs. But we have a more robust immune system. We have a little bit of blood storage and a little bit of metabolism. Whereas the bird to the side I need oxygen all the time. And there is only 21 percent in the ambient air. So I need to do whatever it takes to make my gas exchange as effective as possible.

  Jennifer: 10:39

  Okay. So two questions come to mind. One, I see people with birds that have enlarged air sacs and they use a needle to deflate them. Is that. What is that? And should you use a needle to deflate them?

  Dr. Hopster: 10:58

  Yeah, so sometimes air can be entrapped. For example, if we know this from ourselves, if we have chronic respiratory diseases then over time our airways become lesser patent, lesser elastic, and then it can, And then birds can develop so called air trapping, which can inflate their air sacs a little bit. If that is the case just deflating the air sacs is make it make Yeah, might give some relief in the moment, but it's not really a treatment of the issue. And usually that's redevelops quite quickly. Another thing that people need to be quite careful with is if you use a normal needle and not a special medical needle that is hollow Therefore allows the gas to basically leave the bird. If you just poke a hole in the air sac, you might you might risk emphysema development, meaning that the air might leave the air sac, but it's still trapped in the bird. So it is usually best to to use special equipment. If they are doing, if they are very calm and very quiet. You can try to do it yourself, but usually these birds do best if they are at least mildly sedated or well restrained because entering and exiting with a needle, we always think it might cause a small hole, but if you actually enter a very inflated balloon with a needle, you will see that they erupt. And worst case scenario, you can actually burst the air sac. And that might be a death sentence for this bird. Because then during inhalation, it would just entrap more and more air until they couldn't breathe anymore.

  Jennifer: 12:45

  Okay, if you did nothing, could the bird eventually fix this inflated air sac itself?

  Dr. Hopster: 12:52

  Yeah, if it's not severe and you find the reasoning for this inflated air sac, for example a respiratory issue and you treat that respiratory issue Okay. Then there's a very good chance that the secondary symptom or problem, right? The inflated air sag this meteorism would then resolve once the underlying issue is resolved.

  Jennifer: 13:15

  We're not sticking to my outline. You've got me, like, all sidetracked and I'm having to think.

  Dr. Hopster: 13:20

  Yeah, I realize that.

  Carey: 13:22

  This the show is called Poultry Nerds and this is actually really bringing out the geek inside of me and I'm really getting into learning about this and I didn't, I did, I would have never imagined that a bird breathing has nine air sacs and it's such a, they're taking in and they're inhaling and exhaling at the same time. I would have never thought that.

  Dr. Hopster: 13:47

  It is. The concept is brilliant. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

  Jennifer: 13:52

  I was reading a paper last night as I was trying to wrap my brain around talking to you, and it said they actually inhaled twice. For the exhale. So the second

  Dr. Hopster: 14:03

  inhalation is a little bit longer. That's why they have this this uneven number of air sacs, right? So in the, they can make the inspiratory period very long and the expiratory period a little bit shorter, which is quite the opposite of how we breathe. If you I always tell my students Not now because now everyone is at alert, but during the next lecture, when some of them have forgotten, they should casually observe in a non creeping way, their neighbor. and see how they breathe. And they will realize that exhalation takes a really long time. And then there's the pause, right? Then we do a brief inhalation or a deep breath, and then a long exhalation. And the bird is much more linear, constantly breathing with a nice ratio of one and a half to one, right? With constant airflow, constant oxygen uptake, which is super effective. That's why they do so well, still quite well, right? At high altitudes. When the barometric pressure drops, we might still have 21 percent oxygen, but we have so much lesser oxygen particles, right? If you go up to Mount Everest that's why we only go up there with an oxygen bottle, right? When the barometric pressure drops. By 40 percent or so, we theoretically have 40 percent less oxygen available, which is a problem for us, but not for a bird. They do incredibly well in low oxygen environments because they are so incredibly effective.

  Jennifer: 15:24

  Super interesting. Carrie is just like grinning from ear to ear on the nerdy stuff here.

  Carey: 15:29

  I can't help it. It's very interesting because, as he's sitting here talking about how They breathe faster and stuff. I think I'm real bad about going out and sitting in the yard where my birds are. I have chickens and quail and, I'll watch the quail and they breathe extremely fast and my chickens do too. And, I just never really thought about why but, now I realize that it's a lot more efficient. And it works. Yeah, it does.

  Jennifer: 16:05

  I have to attribute the question then before we move on to my next set of questions. So would a hummingbird breathe faster than say a big old turkey? Yes. Okay. All right. So one last question on this part of it. So we have a diaphragm, which squeezes our lungs, right? So we don't have a diaphragm. So what's squeezing that air in and out? The chest itself,

  Dr. Hopster: 16:29

  the chest movement. And it's usually really well synchronized. It's usually really well synchronized with their wing movement. Particularly during flying. That is something that many animals do a horse, for example, when it gallops. It synchronizes, its breathing to its strides, and the bird does the same because it's very energy efficient, right? They use the movement anyways either to fly or to move forward. Why not using the movement also to move gas in and out? So they do this with with their chest movement quite extensively. And because they don't have the diaphragm as their main respiratory muscle. Which is an advantage from an from a body cavity perspective, right? Because therefore they have much more space for the air sacs, but it is a disadvantage. For example, when when they have some kind of lacerations or wounds, if we have a, if we have a wound and it involves our abdomen, we can still breathe. We will have other problems, but breathing is not altered because the chest is still a very enclosed space. If that happens to a bird, they will start struggling with breathing. We will see this. Even small wounds a bite wound, for example they will start struggling with breathing. much more than we would.

  Jennifer: 17:46

  Interesting. Okay. So now let's talk about like respiratory infections, colds, that kind of stuff. So mammals have tonsils and all other, I don't know, all the anatomy stuff that's all up in there to gather dust and keep it, keep our lungs clean. So how do birds keep that stuff out of their lungs and air sacs I guess?

  Dr. Hopster: 18:15

  Yeah. And and that, that is for birds a little bit more tricky, right? They have a lesser fine and lesser advanced developed immune system, but also pure cleaning system. So the first thing that birds do is when the air enters rise through the nostrils and the nose into the trachea, because that is something that a bird has like we have that too. There's a very small they are very small cilia, right? Little They look a little bit like, like very small feathers that that are all over the mucosa of the trachea and they are in constant movement. And usually what happens when you inhale quite fast and fast inhalation, when it enters a narrow space or a narrow tube like the bird's airway becomes very turbulent. So you go from a low to a high pressure. That's a little bit like a garden hose phenomenon, right? When you have the same amount of water and you just narrow the garden hose, you just increase the pressure. the pressure. Same happens here. So you increase the pressure. This increase in pressure then hits the trachea wall and starts to become really turbulent. And this turbulence is quite helpful. Because it leads to the air having a lot of contact time with the with the airway wall while it's traveling downwards, in a spiral. And then all the rough dirt and dust, some microbes and some very small particles. Are then caught by these cilia that are along the trachea wall and they, they move constantly in waves and the wave and the wave like movement of the cilia always goes towards the nose. So these small and dust and particles are then caught. And the cilia, while moving, move them back upwards, and then at the end for us that will be snot is something that the bird can then cough out and that is really that is really important to keep the air that then enters the lung as clean as possible. Because the air sacs themselves have only very limited capacity to for defense against either smaller particles or even bacteria microbes or viruses that enter air sacs. So the most effective way for the airway to basically clean itself up is it's a wash out effect of fresh air. Therefore it is important, right? For birds to either have a lot of access to fresh air so that they can constantly breathe. And that is why birds That can move more, right? That are not contained in small in small spaces, but can either move or if they are supposed to fly, that they can fly or run a little bit to really actually activate their breathing system. That's why they usually do Do substantially better. And then the last thing that is is really important for the immune and defense mechanism of the airway of of alien lungs. Is they have a very special lymphatic system that that if there should be any kind of transfer of particles or microorganisms that this lymphatic system immediately filters that and transports it away before it can cause any kind of systematic or systemic damage.

  Jennifer: 21:38

  Does it put it out as an exhale or filter it through the liver and? Yeah, if it's,

  Dr. Hopster: 21:45

  once it enters, it would be filtered through through liver and kidneys and then excreted either via the bile and then with the feces, right? Or as giving that birds don't have a lot of urine.

  Jennifer: 21:59

  Okay. I'm wrapping my brain around everything. Come on, Carey. You got a question.

  Carey: 22:07

  1 of my questions involves avian influenza. Yes, I know that is a huge thing that hits a lot of different areas. And I have always wondered if a bird's nutrition did not help build their immune system and if it was possible for them to not get sick because they had a really good immune system. Or how, what's the science behind all that? How does that work? And is there anything that can be done? To help prevent or is it just one of those things

  Dr. Hopster: 22:45

  That is a fantastic question. And will require a little bit broader answer. Because avian influenza right is a viral infection that mainly affects the airways. And this question is a brilliant question when it comes to viral infections that affect the airways, right? And now that we just barely left a pandemic with with a strong association to airway infections, I think this topic is is really broad, incredibly important. And to answer it, particularly for avian influenza and and It's target species, birds. Yes, we can do certain dietary measures to improve immune function. In general, and in particular, when it comes to the pulmonary immune function, we can't prevent fully infection just by nutrition. But as it is with us the healthier the individual the better we treat ourselves and our bodies, the more likely it is That that we will either be able to, to immune fight the infection if the viral load is low enough and allows that if the viral load is too high and exposure is just too aggressive good nutrition will still help you to if you're an overall good health, you might still have a much better chance to to to not become severely sick and maybe have a have lesser severe symptoms, the faster recovery time and a few specifics when it comes to immune function, right? So some vitamins and some minerals essential for a functioning immune system. Vitamin a, for example it's quite crucial when it comes to overall maintaining healthy mucosal surfaces. And that is in these kinds of problems, that's mainly the airway mucosa, right? There's active cilia movements that these are all healthy and doing well. That would also be the gastrointestinal tract when we will, when we would look at other diseases. So making sure that the, that these animals are well supported then what we likely know vitamin E, it's a very important antioxidant that that supports the immune function and that helps keeping immune cells healthy. Healthy and active. It prevents a little bit immune cell degeneration. Same would be true for selenium. Then zinc is It's something that that can support cell healing and cell function and therefore theoretically also wound healing, right? If you just look at the immune system and vitamin and mineral support But also, as we discussed earlier an appropriate protein and energy level is really important, right? If you want to maintain a healthy flock or healthy individual birds that they are that they are in good shape, that they have enough energy to fight off infections, that they have enough energy to regenerate proper. If it comes to any kind of other diseases and then because most of our organ systems are linked, um, it is also not unimportant to to think about other organ systems, like for example the gastrointestinal system, and gut health and and then and then overall. despite good nutrition is then good housing. If you are concerned if your birds show any kind of symptoms, that you have a stress flip or a low stress environment, that they have time to properly generate. We can oftentimes translate a lot from us and our health to healthcare of animals, when we are not feeling well. It helps us to stay in bed, right? Proper regenerate, have a low stress low energy environment now and then get some fresh air, right? My, my grandma always said to air out your lungs, which is certainly true, right? The older I get, the more I realized I should have listened even more to what these smart people had to say. And that is something that you can. Absolutely. Apply to to your birds as well.

  Jennifer: 26:54

  Wow. Okay. So I would like to ask you a couple of questions from a new chicken keepers point of view. If chickens are sneezing or coughing a little bit, or just sound a little bit raspy. I know what I do, but what would you suggest that they do first before they start to panic?

  Dr. Hopster: 27:18

  The last time I had a problem with my chickens and it's likely that I would do the same again, I would reach out to an experienced to an experienced chicken keeper. I believe that I can say that, giving that I am in that profession. I think that that many of my colleagues as great as they are, right. And as fantastic as they work and as well trained as they are. oftentimes just lack this last piece of experience, right? The true self experience that is oftentimes needed to a identify a problem proper. And then also to realize when is it appropriate to react and respond? And when is it appropriate, which kind of problems can I sit out and wait out? And back to my grandma, there are oftentimes a few household tips that are. That carry much lesser side effects as effective and maybe cause substantially lesser stress for your birds, because The scenario that I'm always afraid of is right. So I have a, I have a. I have a quail and this quail has maybe a little bit of nasal discharge or maybe breathe this a little bit different than the other quails. And if I now overreact and catch this bird and take it out of its used environment and away from its friends and drag it to a place and then there's, and then there's Then there is diagnostics may be done, right? And maybe blood is taken and maybe a radiograph, right? As we usually tend to do that to ever get a better idea of the lungs. And then and then I get the advice to to apply fresh air a little bit of supplements and vitamins. Then I feel that, You might have not only lost a substantial amount of money, but the, but this poor bird also substantial amount of energy that it might have invested better into into healing, right? The risk is always if it's an infectious disease you want to catch that early and maybe separate a little bit if you have this opportunity, but my advice will always be reach out to to maybe your neighbor, your friend or if you are really fresh chicken chicken father to the person that you bought these these chickens from and ask for their advice, right? Describe it. Have you seen that before as well? What did you do? Did it work? Because experience is so invaluable. And and if you get your birds from the right people they will help you. They will follow up and they know what to do a hundred percent.

  Jennifer: 29:46

  So just for your information if one of my birds sneezes, I don't really even, I may not even notice until maybe a week later, if they're still doing it. But all of my birds are outside. They're on grass. The chickens are fresh air under sunshades, open to the elements. And I just, if one of them just doesn't seem like he's feeling all that well, I'll just throw them out in the yard. Here you go, sink or swim. And almost 99 percent of the time they swim because they just needed that, the fresh air, the grass, the sunshine, the, the natural elements, yeah. A little bit of

  Dr. Hopster: 30:28

  sun, a little bit of vitamin D, a little bit of warmth.

  Jennifer: 30:32

  Yeah, I think people get so worried about predators that they tend to lock them up too tight, and that's a ventilation issue. My coops are mostly hardware cloth. They actually have very little solid structure walls. They're almost all hardware cloth. And people just freak out when they see them sometimes. And, but I don't get sick chickens, you

  Carey: 31:00

  know,

  Jennifer: 31:00

  constantly, or they're in the cold air, they're in the breeze. They get wet when it rains, just like they did, a thousand years ago,

  Carey: 31:10

  that's how they get that vigor.

  Dr. Hopster: 31:13

  Yeah. I think you are a hundred percent right. My sister has quails too. She still lives in Germany. They have about 40 quails. And I, and I asked her what she does when it was so hot here in Pennsylvania in July, I asked her what if, what she does if she would move them to a ship into the shade, into the cold or a fan and said, no just leave these poor birds alone. Being birds. She says they have a nice way to to get used to these temperature changes, she says, and they will just do fine much better than if you now start moving them around and doing all kinds of things and and try artificially to improve their welfare.

  Jennifer: 31:52

  Yeah. Just let them be a bird.

  Dr. Hopster: 31:54

  Yeah, exactly.

  Jennifer: 31:56

  All right. So at what point then would you suggest if somebody were to go to the medical route at what point would it be prudent to go see a veterinarian?

  Dr. Hopster: 32:10

  I would, um, if it's, if you have a small flock of birds because it's a hobby bird system, otherwise I would recommend that you should see a veterinarian quite regularly, right? If this is if this is your income and you have thousands of of layers, for example, like my brother in law has, They have they have a very nice laying farm with, I think 28, 000 chickens and he has the vet there every week. And

  Carey: 32:35

  they

  Dr. Hopster: 32:39

  have a quite nice setup. Because they they do this in North Germany and they, um, they, they have these birds have inside opportunities, but they are all free range. And he, they have the vet there quite regularly, for water analysis. And they do a brief walkthrough making sure that they are not right next to each other. Excessive amount of animals looking dull or something like that. But but if I look at my my very proud four quails my four golden girls I would say if I would be able to identify, which is tough, right? Because they all feed from the same area. But if I would identify one that is a true outlier dull not wanting to move when I engage them maybe in lateral recumbency, excessive, very weird breathing pattern for a prolonged period of time, couple of days, I think that I would start seeking advice and maybe see a colleague of mine.

  Jennifer: 33:36

  Sounds reasonable. Let's see. Let me look at my outline because we like totally went way left. We went

  Dr. Hopster: 33:45

  broke.

  Jennifer: 33:46

  We did. How about, let's talk about a couple drugs then. So some drugs most poultry drugs I think are off label. And so people would say, they guess, seven, 10 days egg withdrawal. Or don't eat that bird later on. What's your thoughts on off label drug use and egg withdrawal? That kind of stuff.

  Dr. Hopster: 34:11

  Yeah, that is a great question. So if again differentiating between a large producer which should follow restrictions and should follow antimicrobial guidelines And guidelines for anti inflammatory drugs, right? And and anti fung fungides. Um, but if it comes to if you have a small again, if you have a small flock, it's your These are your birds and your hobby. I would say that when it comes to antimicrobials for whatever reason you had to treat them, you should, and you did circle back with your veterinarian, and your veterinarian tells you I'm not 100 percent sure. I think with two or three weeks max, you're always at a really safe time frame. Most of them are really eliminated quite rapidly. The majority of them will be gone after, after a very few days. And if you want to play it truly safe, if you wait two or maybe three weeks. You are at a very good place. You also need to keep in mind a that just because the antimicrobials are maybe not fully eliminated, they are mostly eliminated. And then you need to always keep the ratio in perspective, right? The amount of antimicrobials that you will find in a quail. Versus the amount of antimicrobials that you would need for yourself, right? Giving that there's a quite substantial body rate, body ratio difference. One example that we always use when it comes to body mass and effect, right? Is It's the question my my dog ate ate a mouse that might have been poisoned. Do I have to be concerned? Sure, you should always be a little bit concerned, right? But But in this case the toxin and toxicity comes from the dose, which will be substantially lower for yourself. So for that, I would say between two and three weeks, you are in a really great place. If for some reason you you were giving anti inflammatory drugs, they have a very fast elimination rate. That is usually very few days. And I wouldn't be concerned about eating eggs or meat from an animal after three or four days when it comes to anti inflammatory drugs.

  Jennifer: 36:21

  Cool. Sounds good. Carey, you got anything else?

  Carey: 36:26

  No, that was really awesome though. I will say it was great to meet you. And I enjoyed hearing that explanation of how the respiratory system works on birds.

  Dr. Hopster: 36:36

  Yeah, it was really fun. Thank you so much for having me.

  Jennifer: 36:39

  That was fascinating. Actually, a lot more information than I expected.

  Carey: 36:43

  Yeah. Thank you very much.

  Dr. Hopster: 36:45

  Yes. You're very welcome. I hope you have a great evening. And if I have ever a problem about my quails, you can be sure I will send you an email.

  Carey: 36:55

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you can receive the new episodes right when they are released. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com and share your thoughts about the show. Be sure to also give us a like and a follow on Facebook. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it eggciting. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

I Just Got Some New Birds. Now What? Quarantine?

Bringing home a parasite or illness is terrifying to a breeder, quarantine is super important. If you are not a believer, listen in and see why you should.

Quarantine

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• Transcript

  Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant, and we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible. Carey, we're back again, but this time we're going to talk about quarantining. Yeah, it's I titled this one. I just got some new birds. What now? And quarantine should be part of your plan for sure. And it seemed like a good topic. You were just here over the weekend, took some turkeys home with you. You brought me some new goodies that I haven't told anybody about yet. So while this stuff is fresh on our minds, it seemed like a good time to talk about it. So when you brought me birds, I did put them in my condo, which is just the side of my barn. I have some pens. They're nowhere near any other birds, even though I trust your birds. I trust your animal husbandry. I don't have any issues with how you keep your birds. But the bacteria on your property, the environment in your property, your feed is all very different than the environment on my property. What I have and what I do and my dirt's different than your dirt. And with the ones that I brought from you. I have a condo that is downwind and away from my flock and that's where they went. I had some others that had been residing in there and I gave them their eviction notice and put them back to where I wanted them to be. I put those turkeys in there and, I've checked on them every day and they seem to be doing pretty well adjusting. And so that makes me happy that it was a good transition for them. Anytime you move birds around, they're going to get stressed. Even if I'm out of one pen and put them in another pen they have to reorder their pecking order. I'm going to argue with people a little bit. They're going to be stressed a little bit. Riding in the back of your trailer in the dark around the curves, that's going to stress them out after a few hours. Now, I will say that the couple of times that we did stop and I look, I opened the door and looked back there to check on them. They were just laying there, pop their head up and be like, what are you doing? Them some turkeys are some nosy folks. I'm telling you, I thought some, like some of my chickens I thought were bad turkeys and turkeys are worse than messy teenagers. Just on a side note, if you just want some cheap redneck entertainment, just put something new in their pen and then just sit back because they just have stranger danger to no end. They go crazy. So my dad gave me as a gag gift this past year while we were down at the beach he was in a store and he found this rubber chicken that makes an obnoxious noise. And I have actually put that in my chicken pens on a couple of occasions. And then the bigger birds, when they peck it, it makes it's enough movement to make the air noise. And the look on some of them's face is hilarious. So I'm really curious. I'm going to let these turkeys settle into their new home, get adjusted to everything. And then one day I'm going to go out there with my bucket and toss that in there and just sit on the bucket and see what happens. They act a fool. All right. So anytime. You bring a new bird onto the property. You should quarantine them. Definitely chicks, gun birds, even if hatching eggs, you should quarantine them. Even if they're your birds, you took to a show and you brought them back. You should quarantine them. If you took them to the vet and brought them back, you should quarantine them. Anything that changes their environment, you should quarantine them. And the reason could be disease. Different bacteria, the stress something could be carried on the bird, on the person in the packaging. If you brought home birds from the farm store, the birds might be okay, but maybe something is on the box that was laying on the floor where some farmer walked by. You just don't know what could be coming in with. With you. So what you do is you just simply put the birds off by themselves. In my case, I put'em on the side of the barn. No other birds are near'em. I ideally, they're 30 feet away from other birds. You're going to care for them last. So that just means that when you're doing your chores, you're not gonna go near those birds until you're done with everybody else. Because if you go take them first or in the middle, then everybody you go talk to feed, sit down and observe is going to be you could have an issue. Post exposed is the word I was looking for. So you defeated the whole purpose and you're going to want to do this for at least 30 days. So 30 feet for 30 days. And you're going to just give them clean food, clean bedding clean water and you could give them some nice supplements to boost their immune system because especially if they're new birds, they're going to be stressed a little bit. They're unsure of their surroundings, but you don't want to keep them in the dark. You don't want to keep them in a small confined space inside your house. You want them fresh air, sunlight a more natural location. Yeah, so I have the, this, the coop that I was talking about that is where my chicken yard is. The air flows one way. Hardly ever does the wind blow a different way, which I like that idea. It works pretty good. And with that, I've got this about 50 feet on the far end down, secluded by itself, and I use it to, when I hatch out chicks and I'm brutal. Four or five weeks, they're out outside. I don't care if it's winter time. I don't care what it is. They go out and they go here because this, my, I don't know what, I guess my seclusion or whatever you want to call it is chain link fence, six foot tall panels, 10 foot by 10 foot. It has a metal roof on it made with the same metal. That you could put this like on your house or whatever. And the chain link fence, I have, I dug a ditch around it, set the fence actually in the ditch. So the bottom's underground and I have quarter inch hardware cloth, no half inch by half inch hardware cloth that's four foot tall all the way around it. So it's virtually predator proof, but I did that because that's where my baby chicks go when I first throw them outside and all of that stuff. With it being chain link, they could walk right through that, but that's why I have that. Like with these they rode in the back of a trailer for a couple hours. They're in a new environment, so they're stressed. The last thing I want happening is one of the, a lot less now than what used to be, but one of the raccoons that's in the woods to come try to get them. So that, that's, I got it fortified, if you will, just for that. And I want to look at them. I will stand over by the others, especially if I see that Tom with his feathers out. Cause rip made a comment on a Facebook status that I shared with a pitcher that, I was pretty, seemed like there might be a theme going on with red birds. And I do, I love it, especially these that I got from you, these bourbon reds. They've got that deep red color, the perfect white tail, and just that nice little dark strip across the top. Like they're supposed to have you've done a really good job working with the line that you have and cleaning them up and making them just really fantastic. And so yesterday I walked out. And I was, I thought I saw him starting to swell up. And so I just froze and I looked. I wanted to go over there. I really did, but I stopped myself because I was like, I can't do that. So it's very important that those are the last ones that you take care of. Cause again, I know you have MPIP, which is important cause they get tested every year. I have that as well. So I know my birds have been tested for the same things that your birds have been tested. But like you said, your dirt's different. The bacteria you have in Tennessee is different than the crap that I have here in Alabama. And it's just smart. Yeah. You also want to check them for external parasites because you don't want anything else causing stress on their immune system when you bring them in. I personally don't have any issues with the parasites up there in those particular pens where these turkeys came from. I've got sulfur water up there and me and you have extensively talked about this sulfur water. And so I think right now we've concluded that the sulfur is making it inhospitable for parasites on those birds. So yeah, sulfur to an extent is actually a good thing for a bird. There are people that put it in supplements for them to consume. Usually, anything around 2 to 3,000 parts per million is healthy. It's not bad. It doesn't become toxic until closer to 8,500 or 9,000 parts per million for chickens. or poultry in general. But for a little bitty parasite, if that sulfur is inside that bird's body and a parasite bites it, it's going to kill it. So it helps out a lot with that. And you having the well water could very well be the reason why you do not have any issues. It's because you got that natural sulfur intake into the birds and it is what it is. Are you putting sulfur in the Show Pro supplement now? Yes. Sulfur is in the Show Pro. Coincidentally around 2,250 parts per million is about what it is. When you mix it with your feed. That's, that's scientific studies show that. And I do know people that are in Guam that use show pro and have had problems with mites specifically, and. They don't anymore. So while you have these birds quarantined to give them some good quality feed We will preach that probably every podcast to give them good quality feed Supplements are always great. I also have a Mixture that I use I'm not gonna call it a tincture It's an old gallon jug that has water in it. And I threw about, I don't know, 20 cloves of garlic, fresh garlic in there, just the whole cloves, just pulled the paper and broke them a little bit. I don't know, huge handfuls of fresh oregano right out of the garden in there. and a splash of apple cider vinegar. I don't measure anything, but it stays in my barn refrigerator and that just sits and it steeps in it. When I use it, I just top it back off and add some fresh in there and never remake it. You don't want to use that as their sole water supply, but When they're stressed, I just carry it out and I just, if I had to guess, I'd say a half to a cup of it to a gallon of water, maybe freshly water. I don't measure anything. So just a blonk. Five second for maybe I don't know. But it's those oils in that oregano and that garlic and the vinegar that's really supporting their immune system. So I've got some stuff that I use. It's very similar to that. When it is originally made, the concentrate, there is some measurements that go into it. However, it's got the just for legal purposes, I have to put a recommended dosage on the label, but yeah, I take the lid off and. Okay, there we go. Put the lid back on. I do it based off color. I know when I turn the color of the water to a certain, when it gives a certain shade of darkness, then I know that I'm about where I need to be, and just for giggles, I did actually measure at one time and it was extremely close. And it's birds, it's not science. So I just get it close and do it. It is better than nothing and it does help with the stress and all that kind of stuff. So it works pretty well. If you want more information on mine other than just throw some of this stuff in the gallon jug. I do have a post pinned to my Facebook page, the top of my Facebook page, and it's an old post and people still use it, so it's up there. All right, so we've got them in a clean place, 30 feet away from other birds supplements, good feed and I'm gonna say that, I'm gonna say this there's a lot of people that have their own opinions about NPIP. But I'm going to say this, unless you've known the person all your life and you have absolutely no birds at your house, you need to buy from somebody that has NPIP because that means that at least one point during the year when their flock was tested, they were disease free. And people that go to the trouble of getting the NPIP, they're not, I don't know any people that have been scammed by someone with an NPIP. People with NPIP typically take pride in caring for their birds and feeding them correctly. Now, I will say, just like everything else there's some people that have NPIP that I would not eat a dozen eggs that came off their farm. after washing them. But typically speaking, it's a good thing to have. It is a start, yes. And also, if people want to show you pictures of where the birds live, that would be another red flag. I don't care if this person is the best marketing person in the world, And you think they're amazing at what they do. If they won't show you where the parent stock or the birds that you're getting or the hatching eggs that you're getting come from, that should be a red flag. That's another thing about getting new birds, quarantining, that's big for me. Yes, let's go back a step here and where you're getting the birds from, which is what you're talking about quality. The biggest thing I think that you can look for when you go shopping is just physically check the bird. See if it has parasites on it. See if it has bubbles in its eyes. Listen to its breathing. Does it feel bony? Or does it feel nice and heavy and full? What's the feather quality look like? And I know as humans, I have literally thousands of animals on this property. We want to take care of all of the animals. But there is a point to, and I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion, but there's a point where you have to gauge the health of the thousands. over the one. Know what you're bringing home. Because it is possible. It is done where somebody brings a sick bird home and loses everything. It, it does happen. It's not a myth. So just be careful. Don't bring home sick animals sick birds. Now, a dog or something, a mammal is completely different. Their system's different. But there's still risks there, but a bird is a completely different ball game. So make sure there's no bubbles in those eyes. That's very big for me. I'm a huge checker for bubbles in their eyes. Now, I don't go bird shopping. That's not something I do. But when I sell a bird, and the person comes here, then I show them. I show them, we check for mites together, we look at feet, we check for skin color and bumblefoot and feather quality, and we look at combs, and we look at ears to make sure they're clean, and eyes to make sure they're clear, and the pupils are correct. Some people don't realize it, but you can see marrocks in a pupil of an eye. Look for bubbles in the eyes. Look for nostrils that are clean and beaks that aren't overgrown. You just, you gotta do the best you can, but then you need to also make a decision. If that bird is sickly, do you really want to risk bringing it home? And that's only a decision that you can make. It's your property, it's your animals, it's your farm. My farm is a going business at this point, and I just simply can't afford to bring a sick bird here. It's just not going to happen. So I, all right, that was my soapbox for the moment. So now we've got these birds on clean bedding. We've given them a low roost dust baths. So what we're trying to create here is a stress free environment. Yeah. They can acclimate to life their new life pretty well. All right. So I've made a list here of some things don't. Don't do this. Don't bring a bird home and just throw it out with your birds. Just don't do that. They're going to fight. For one, they're going to get stressed out. You're going to stress out that bird even more that just traveled. And the ones you just threw it in with. They got to redo the whole pecking order. And yeah, I hate to say it, but if you if you had a bird that was asymptomatic, didn't look sick, didn't feel sick, but it was sick. Then you just infected your whole flock. You did. Make sure, and this is a new topic, just I think in the last couple of years that I don't think people realize, you don't want to mix vaccinated and unvaccinated birds. Especially the Marix vaccine is the one I'm specifically talking about. So there's different kinds of Marix and vaccinated birds can still be carriers and shed it in their dander. Yeah. Yeah. And that will infect your unvaccinated birds. And another thing that I'm a huge, I'm majorly against is you got people that every time they get new birds, they bring it home and they want to treat it for coccidiosis and throw in some ivermectin and all that. I don't do that crap. If the bird's not sick, which I'm not medicating a bird, period, but don't bring a bird home, medicate it because if you're hiding something, it's that may hide whatever for the 30 days that you're going to quarantine it, then you're going to put it with your flock and everybody's going to get sick. So don't do that. So what we're saying here is you check the bird over, you made a decision that it's at least healthy enough to come home with you. The reason why you have it sequestered is to see if it develops anything in its new environment And that's why we're saying don't medicate. I totally agree with him on this point. Of course I don't medicate anybody, but so don't medicate them because you could just be masking an illness and then you won't, it will defeat the purpose of the quarantine. And then eggs. Now this is something that people just don't really want to talk about, but there are some diseases that are vertically transferred and eggs and with the hatching egg business. As big as it is at this point, when you take in eggs, it is possible. It's not waterly, readily available. It's possible, but not like every box of eggs is going to have it, but you could bring a disease in with the eggs, and you have to decide on that too, if that's a risk you want to take. So know your breeders and know if they medicate, if they're covering up stuff, if if they're NPIP, if they're, if they cull hard. Personally, I mean, Carey was here and I think even he was a little shocked at just how what did we call it? Ruthless. You were kidding. I was ruthless, but. I wasn't shocked. I've known you for a while and that's in the breeding things that I have learned from you, if I was to make a list and I think I saw someone posted a comment about the secrets. And I told him the secret and it's call hard. Don't be afraid in a breeding program. If you're trying to improve anything or maintain anything, don't be afraid to call if you think it's sick, I have a 24 hour rule. If you come out of the, if you come out of the hatcher and you're not a hundred percent, if you're Then it depends on what kind of mood I'm in. If I'm tired, you got 24 hours. Cause I'm probably not going to be tired and exhausted the next time I come in there. But if I'm not exhausted, you're not making it. Because I don't want you to suffer. And that's, that is not a trait that I want to breed forward. Think over the weekend you were calling me ruthless because I had birds in the hatcher and I don't keep early hatches. I don't keep late hatches. I don't keep sickly hatches. I want you to hatch on the day you were supposed to hatch. And those are the ones that are actually going to get the chance to move forward. But I think being ruthless like that, yes, It is. Some people may. It is. I was joking, but it is ruthless. But that's how your birds are the way they are. That's how they grow the way they do. That's how they live the lives that they live. That's how they survive anything. Mhm. So I'm a firm believer in it. And that's why I can ship birds all over the country. And I'm 100 percent confident they will survive the trip. And I sleep well at night because they come from good stock. So quarantine it that fits into quarantining. Because if the bird is sick or the bird is hiding something, you want to cull it. You don't want that in your breeding program. Even if you are a backyard breeder, you don't want that in there. That's right. All right. And then the last thing we didn't talk about is, maybe we talked about it and I just forgot already make sure you take care of those birds last. Don't take care of them first because you're gonna get the dander can get in your hair It can get on your hair and the hair on your arms. It can get on your shirt. It can get on your shoes You want to make sure you are taking care of those birds last. Otherwise, you just defeated the purpose So just go over there and take a hold of them and throw them out in the main coop. Might as well. And while we're talking about quarantine I'm even going to say you need to quarantine your shoes. If you go to a friend's house that has a farm and y'all, you walked at chicken yard or you walk in their coil barn or whatever, you need to quarantine those shoes. The shoes, like I did not mind walking into your place because I knew that those shoes that I had on had never even been in my chicken yard. They had never been in my coil barn and before they will go in there. I will wash the bottoms of them with bleach and actually put the shoe itself in the washing machine just because, it is what it is. It's a comfortable pair of shoes and I might wear them next time I come up there, but I don't want to, and I don't want to bring anything. So we actually have a mutual friend. I'm not going to call him by name here because he's not here to talk for himself. But he, if a bird falls out of the brooder onto the floor, the bird is cold because it touched the floor and he doesn't know what's on the floor and he should have flied. He won't pick it back up and put it back up in the pen for fear of contaminating the other birds. Now that is correct. It is what it is. It is. I've got one running around my barn right now because I don't know where she came from and so she's just living on the floor right at the moment. It's like when you find a chicken that don't look right and you throw it out of the pen. Just sank or swam. That's right. I hope we didn't come off as ruthless, too much ruthless anyway, but this is really an important topic and it would give you a lot of heartache if you're new to birds to not bring your birds home and throw them right in, into your main flock because you put a lot of work into your main flock and they're worth more than the trouble for 30 days of quarantining the new people. Most definitely. Yeah. All right. Thank you guys for joining us today and don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a review if you would like.

  Carey:28:27

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

CluckerBooks.com w/Jeff Duguay

The companion books to the Standard of Perfection. Huge helps to understanding your birds, written by breeders and judges.

Clucker Books

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• Transcript

  Tony: 0:00

  Welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast, where feathers meet fun. Your podcast hosts are Carey Blackmon and Jennifer Bryant. Together, they work hard to bring you the latest news and information from the world of poultry. So get ready for eggciting interviews, foul facts, and more. Now here's Carey and Jennifer.

  0:17

  Mhm.

  Jennifer Bryant: 0:25

  All right. Welcome to Poultry Nerds. We're here with Jeff Duguay.

  Jeff Dugay: 0:30

  Duguay.

  Jennifer Bryant: 0:31

  Duguay. And he is from Clucker Books. So Jeff, tell us about yourself.

  Jeff Dugay: 0:38

  All right. Let's see. I grew up in Maine, but I currently live in Louisiana. I've had chickens pretty much since I was a kid, I guess. Had them since I was real little, then I used to show when I was just a kid. I really didn't know what I was doing, though. I'd get hatchery birds, show them, and never win a show or anything. Then when I went to college, I got rid of all my birds. Then after graduate school, got a job, got back into chickens again. I've had them for geez, I don't know, 20 plus years, 25 years since college. So that dates me a little.

  Jennifer Bryant: 1:16

  I'm sitting here doing the math when I graduated from college, so I'm older than you apparently.

  Jeff Dugay: 1:21

  I worked in a warehouse for five years after high school. So I don't like school when I was in high school, but then I went to college, got three degrees, so college was a lot better, especially after working in a warehouse for a while.

  Jennifer Bryant: 1:35

  So tell our listeners, what kind of chickens do you raise now?

  Jeff Dugay: 1:38

  All right, I raise a modern game bantams. I've had those for, I don't know, over 20 years. And I just last year got a few naked necks. Sam Brush had sent me some eggs for some red naked neck bantams, and I ended up keeping a trio out of those, so I've got about 20 naked necks running around. But moderns are my main thing.

  Jennifer Bryant: 2:02

  I think moderns look like Barbie dolls. I don't want to tell you what I think naked looks look like.

  Jeff Dugay: 2:08

  Yeah, they're weird. Actually, they're both weird in different ways.

  Jennifer Bryant: 2:13

  So where, just before we get into what you're doing now, tell me, how did the modern games come about? How did they get such long legs?

  Jeff Dugay: 2:21

  They were actually first bred. Over in Britain when cockfighting was outlawed. And so they wanted to come up with something else. And basically they developed the moderns for a show bird. And for whatever reason, they decided they wanted a long legged bird. So they were raised specifically for showing.

  Jennifer Bryant: 2:42

  Gotcha. For our listeners, you don't know what a modern game is. You need to Google it and look it up. But when I first saw them, my first reaction was like a Barbie doll in Vegas with the big feathers on, and the high heels and the legs and stuff, but that's what they've reminded me of.

  Jeff Dugay: 2:59

  Yeah, actually, the cover on my modern book looks like that. I know people can't see it, but you guys can.

  Jennifer Bryant: 3:06

  Yep, there's Barbie doll.

  Jeff Dugay: 3:07

  Yeah, they got those long legs. People call them skinny jeans birds. Yeah, so long legs and noted for,

  Carey Blackmon: 3:14

  yeah, they're real

  Jeff Dugay: 3:17

  friendly too, which is what I like great dispositions on them. They're you handle them. They're about the friendliest bird. There is.

  Jennifer Bryant: 3:25

  Oh, really?

  Jeff Dugay: 3:26

  Yeah,

  Jennifer Bryant: 3:29

  Were they the inspiration for your current project?

  Jeff Dugay: 3:32

  Yeah actually the first book I wrote was on modern game Banthams. And the way that started was I had really improved my line of moderns quite a bit. When I first started, the birds I was producing were pretty sad looking. I had the standard, so I knew what they should look like. Plus, I'd look at other people's birds at shows. So what I did was I started writing it just so I would remember what I did in my breeding program. So if I needed to repeat it, I could. And then after I'd been working on it a while, I told my wife, I said, Hey, this would make a pretty good book. So I started adding a lot of other stuff. So I had my breeding stuff in there, but then I basically started putting everything in there. Somebody new to moderns would need to know. Like, how do you house them? What's good ways to get them into good feather condition? Keep them there. How do you train them to pose? I even put a section in on parasites and diseases on it. So basically everything I knew about moderns from what I had learned in 20 or so years, I put in there and it came out. I was really impressed with it. It came out good. 1st, I wasn't sure. But then funny thing is, after that, I told my wife, I said, disappointed now. So I've wrote, written about moderns, and I don't know enough about any other chicken to write about

  Carey Blackmon: 4:48

  them.

  Jeff Dugay: 4:49

  And then I was talking to my friend, Peyton Igoe, he raises Old English, and he's also a licensed poultry judge. And he was saying he'd like to write a book on Old English, but he's not a writer. So I said let's collaborate. You got the knowledge and I can write. So we did that. And so that's how I started writing breed books about other breeds of chickens. So I wrote that one. And then after that, I contacted Marty McGuire, who's also a poultry judge, and he's raised silkies for decades. I contacted him and then Tony Davis, who has been raising and showing them for a while, and he's done really well in the shows to see if those guys wanted to collaborate on a book. So basically what I started doing was I'm getting with people that are breed experts, read experts, and then what I've done is basically get them to serve as like consultants to me. So I'll write down stuff, have them read it over. They tell me how it should be fixed or whatever. They also give suggestions on what to include. So that's how it came about. And right now I'm up to eight different books that I've published. They're all breed specific except for one that I call Bantam's a Decade of Winners. And with my job I have a job to support my chicken hobby. And I'm the director of our research and species management at Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries. So I do a lot of statistics there. So I like doing that sort of stuff. So I was looking at the American Bantam Association website, and they had all the starred wins on there. So what I did was I looked at a decade of starred wins to see what birds within each class are winning, and I did some analysis on that, and I wrote a book about that, too. So I have seven books on that are breed specific. Some of them can't contain more than one breed. And then I have that decade of winners. And the old English book has also been translated into Spanish. My daughter in law, Jennifer Dugay, I'll give her a plug. So if she's listening, I get some brownie points with the grandkids, but my daughter in law, she translated it for me. And that's been pretty popular. I send several of those to Mexico.

  Carey Blackmon: 7:01

  You recently published a book about the Crested breeds. Yes.

  Jeff Dugay: 7:06

  Yeah. Yeah. I had talked to Keith Wagner cause he's been raised in Polish and also Sultans, and I was talking to Matt Lamon, who had written the coaching book with, he was one of the authors on that, and he suggested Joshua Trulio, because Joshua's been raising crested breeds for a long time, and he's real well known for his hoodans. So what I did in that book was I actually included four breeds. I have the Krevkor, the Houdan, the Polish, and the Sultan. I put those four breeds together in one book. I figured there's no way I could sell enough books on each one of those individually, except probably the Polish. It costs a lot to self publish, so I figured I'll put them together. Otherwise, the chances of me writing a book on those breeds is unlikely. So that way people that raise those, they can see the different things I put in these books as well. Yeah. And really the the idea with these books is they're like a companion to the standard of perfection. Actually, in every one of my books too, I encourage people to buy the standards. This is a replacement for it, like a companion. What I'll do is I'll go over the different traits and the standard that these exhibition birds should have. Now, I have lots of pictures. I'm a visual learner. A lot of people are so I have pictures. I'll describe what the trade is. And then I'll have pictures showing this is what you want. Here are examples of what you don't want, why you don't want it. So these books are really good for those that are new to showing, so if they've never shown poultry, and then also if you're new to a specific breed. They also include information on there that's really for the newbie. On how do you get into showing what do you need to do? How do you, what did the coup cards mean? How do you read those? What does BB, best of breed mean? Best reserve of breed and so on.

  Jennifer Bryant: 8:59

  So they don't have the standard written in them because that's copyrighted by the APA. So you're more of a companion understanding the standard what the judges are looking for.

  Jeff Dugay: 9:11

  Yeah, that's it exactly. And then In APA and ABA, they're obviously, good with this. So I sell these books on my website, but. APA and APA also sell them on their website too. So I give them a discount and they sell them. So that's a good thing. So that way we reach more people too.

  Carey Blackmon: 9:28

  No, I have looked at some of the standards of perfection as written and published in APA. Their book and having a guide to go along with it to translate it into layman's terms is definitely a plus.

  Jeff Dugay: 9:43

  Yeah, I know. Especially when I was first showing moderns, I'd read things in the standard and I'd be like, I have no idea what that means. So it's a pictorial guide to what they're describing.

  Jennifer Bryant: 9:56

  So what are the breeds? You've got the old English game. You've got the moderns.

  Jeff Dugay: 10:00

  You've got

  Jennifer Bryant: 10:05

  one book of a whole bunch of Bantums. You've got Cochins,

  Jeff Dugay: 10:08

  right?

  Jennifer Bryant: 10:09

  What's the other three?

  Jeff Dugay: 10:10

  I have breeding and showing the Belgian Duclay or Diekel or Duckel, however you pronounce it. The ones that pronounce it Duclay, I call them the hardcore breeders. And I also have the the Seabrights in Belgian D'Anvers. They're in the same book. So that's another one that has to, they're both rose comb cleanly. And that was another with Dan verse. There's not enough exhibitors really, so if I've just wrote a Dan for a book, I couldn't sell enough to pay for the cost of publishing. So I think that's all the, let me see here. So the modern, the old English silky, the Duke clay, the coaching, the Seabright Danvers, and then the crested breed. So that's got the four breeds. Trev core food and Polish and Sultan. And then my decade of winners and currently I've started a new project and this one I'm working with Howard Davenport on and this is but the title I think will be parasites, diseases and disorders of poultry recognizing and treating. So it's going to be another kind of pictorial book where we're going to cover, all the diseases basically that we can. And we describe this. These are the symptoms and this is how you treat it if they can be treated and then have pictures showing what it is, for example, fowl pox. Fox doesn't manifest itself the same on every chicken, some of them get, really bad scabs. There's just a little bit. Some will have them on the legs. So we got a lot of pictures showing different examples of things and then I've been looking at a lot of the Facebook sites and there's several. Poultry veterinary Facebook pages, and there's a lot of people that have poultry, whether it's chickens, turkeys or whatever, that have never had them before. And, they don't really know anything about them, and I've seen posts like people posting saying, Hey, my chicken has this growth on its neck. It's never had it before, and they show a picture and it's the crop. So I'm covering things. That are really basic, that people in the poultry world probably already know, but those new don't with the example of the crop, what I'm doing is I'm telling what the crop is, what its function is, and then showing pictures. So I'm showing a bird with an empty crop, a full crop also the preen gland showing what that is. Describing a function, those sorts of things.

  Jennifer Bryant: 12:34

  So that's your current project. What else you got in the works? You got turkeys going too?

  Jeff Dugay: 12:39

  Not yet. But I do want to include a picture of the beard. I've seen people posting a beard, in the disease pages saying, what is this thing growing off of my turkey? So I want to say, this is a turkey beard. It's modified feathers. Here are pictures of it. But after this, I've already talked to Brian Carriker and Stephen Beatty. We're going to write a book on leg horns, but we might make it the Italian breeds, which are the Ancona Buttercup and Lakehorn and that'll be like my other books. I have pictures describing what's in the standard, those sorts of things. And then I may do Sebastopol geese after that. The, their club had contacted me. See if I'd be interested in writing a book on that. I've had a few people contact me had somebody contact me, a judge about writing one on Japanese. That'll be something that I'll do hopefully soon. At my current rate, I've been publishing about two books a year. So I probably won't live long enough to do every breed of chicken unless like I could retire from work and do it full time. Or unless I start writing really fast. I figure two books a year is pretty good.

  Jennifer Bryant: 13:49

  Yeah, we don't know everything about every breed. We try to zone in on what we're doing and not clutter our brains too much.

  Jeff Dugay: 13:57

  Exactly.

  Jennifer Bryant: 13:58

  Yeah. So tell everybody where they can buy their books if they need one.

  Jeff Dugay: 14:04

  Yeah, so they can get them off the APA or ABA websites or they can buy them off of my website. My website is cluckerbooks. com. C L U C K E R, like a clucking chicken, so I came up with that, and then books. com. And also on my webpage, I have some pages, so people can see what's in these books. I have table of contents and I also have in the works that describes the upcoming project that I'm working on. And I also have a calendar to a 2025 poultry calendar, and I put all the chicken show dates on it that I could so that way, people can look at it and see when the upcoming shows are, and I got pictures of birds on every page, so that's a wall calendar.

  Jennifer Bryant: 14:48

  I did see that. I didn't click on it. I was looking on your web page last night. But the list of shows that would be nifty.

  Jeff Dugay: 14:55

  Yeah. I put that on there and also just some interesting information, things like, monitor your birds for coccidiosis. It's a big killer of chicks. Things like that. Just tidbits here and there. So I just do this for fun. I like writing about chickens. I like taking pictures of chickens. So if you've seen me at a show, I'm probably taking a lot of pictures at the Fort Payne show. I don't know if you were at the one where I brought my setup. I had my whole camera set up there with the backdrops and everything. And I was taking pictures of people's birds for them. And I told them, I'll do this for free. And I didn't charge them for the pictures. But I just told him I may use your pictures in future books. So that's a good way for me to get some pictures. That's how I get a lot of pictures just at the shows. I'll take pictures of birds in cages or whatever.

  Jennifer Bryant: 15:42

  That's why we secretly do this podcast because we just want to talk birds all day long.

  Jeff Dugay: 15:47

  That's good. My favorite thing to talk about. Ask my wife. When I'm not at work, I'm either with my chickens or writing about chickens.

  Carey Blackmon: 15:55

  He had asked me the other day, he followed back, followed me back into the chicken yard. He goes, Hey pops, Why do you like chickens so much? And I said let me ask your question with a question or answer your question with a question. When I'm back here messing with my chickens, how often does anybody come back here? I don't never this first time I've ever been back here and he's lived with us for several years. I said, okay. Do you hear the noises that they make? And he said, yeah, I said, do you ever just sit there and think about them and try to figure out the rhythm or, what they're trying to come up with or all that he said, sometimes late at night, like, when I hear him, it's there'll be in one pin talking to one in the other pin. And I wondered what they're talking about. I said, yeah, it's relaxing.

  Jeff Dugay: 16:45

  That's right. It is relaxing. Sit down.

  Jennifer Bryant: 16:50

  Yep. I woke up in the middle of the night last night or early this morning. I'm not sure which and couldn't go back to sleep. So I laid there and I was like I need to sort this chicken over to this page. And lo and behold, I fell asleep again. Is there anything else you would like to tell any newbies?

  Jeff Dugay: 17:07

  Yeah, if they're folks are interested in getting into showing, one of the best things to do is just start going to some shows, see what kinds of chickens you like. If you want to get a breed of chicken that you really like, because it is work, taking care of them as so get something you like and then, talk to the exhibitors and breeders there. When you find somebody that has a breed of chicken that you like, try to get those, from somebody that shows and does. At least decent at the shows. That way you can start with some good stock. So that makes a big difference. If you go three or four years and you don't make any progress, it's discouraging. So get good birds right off the bat if you can.

  Carey Blackmon: 17:46

  Yeah. Starting with good foundation stock is definitely very important.

  Jeff Dugay: 17:51

  Yes,

  Jennifer Bryant: 17:53

  yeah, and if you do go to a show for the first time week I always try to tell people this but it's hard to interject it anywhere The people sitting in the chairs on the walls are the exhibitors Walking around or more than likely just people looking at chickens Yep, so talk to the people in the chairs.

  Jeff Dugay: 18:13

  Yes, definitely

  Jennifer Bryant: 18:15

  Yeah. All right, Jeff. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming.

  Jeff Dugay: 18:20

  Yeah, I've enjoyed it. It's always fun to talk chickens.

  Jennifer Bryant: 18:23

  Yes. All right. We'll have a good day.

  Jeff Dugay: 18:26

  All right. You too. Thanks a lot.

  Carey: 18:28

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

How to get started in Quail W/Jennifer from Bryant's Roost

Coturnix quail are the gateway to self-sufficiency. Easy to raise and harvest. Get all the details today!

Coturnix quail

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All about the Bielefelder w/Gina

The bielefelder chicken is super interesting breed! The originator is still alive and Gina talks to him as she works on the standard and getting it accepted into the APA.

the Bielefelder

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• Transcript

  Tony: 0:00

  Welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast, where feathers meet fun. Your podcast hosts are Carey Blackmon and Jennifer Bryant. Together, they work hard to bring you the latest news and information from the world of poultry. So get ready for eggciting interviews, foul facts, and more. Now here's Carey and Jennifer.

  0:17

  Mhm.

  Gina: 0:25

  Welcome poultry nerds. We're here with Gina again, but this time we're going to talk about Beeliefelders. Is that how you say it? Beeliefelder. Yes. Beeliefelder. You always have these chickens with the hard to pronounce names. I like a challenge. What can I say? So if you missed Gina last time, she was here for the Ayam Cemani correct. I said it right that time, didn't I? I'm Gina Rather, and we take care of Rather Farms in Columbia, Tennessee. We raise Bielefelder, Ayam Cemani, Rhode Island Red, Black Copper Marans, Splash Americana, and Zombie Chickens. Zombies, you ready for Halloween? I am. Yeah. I saw you're hatching again. You're getting those ready close to Halloween, huh? Yeah. Yeah. We weren't planning on starting to hatch in earnest until September. And I've had so many requests. I'm like, I'm feeding these eggs back. And this is crazy. So just go ahead and pop them in the incubator. All right. Might as well. So tell us about the Beeliefelder. Where did they come from? Tell us all about them. So the Bielefelder was developed by a man named Geerd Roth in Germany in the late 1970s. Geerd took a number of different breeds to create the Bielefelder, each breed, of course, contributing a vital component of what the Bielefelder is supposed to be. Bielefelder is a barred chicken. They get their barred color from the Malines or the Michelin. It's they're known by two different names. It is a very large black and white barred bird, similar to our barred rock, but a little bit more body mass. He also used the New Hampshire. He used the Welsumer. And a couple other breeds that escape me at the moment, terrible, but they get their coloring from the Wellsummer. They get their coloring from the Malines. I believe they get a black restrictor from the New Hampshire's which prevents the black in the breast. So this is a big deal for me. When people talk about the Bielefelder, they say, Oh it's a creel colored bird, and it's not a creel colored bird, and here's why. Creel is the barring gene on a black breasted red bird, and the Bielefelder absolutely should not have any black in the breast. Therefore, it cannot be creel. Bielefelder is its own unique color. No other APA accepted breed has this color. Interesting. Yeah, that's pretty neat. So is that what sets apart the standard? We don't have a standard just yet, but we're going to get to that in just a second. But maybe the hatchery pet quality from the, from what you're attempting to make the standard bred? That's a big factor. So if you look at a lot of your hatchery stock photos, black in the breast. It's definitely not what you want. But the thing is, these birds have been in the country for many years. The hatcheries have labeled them a rare breed. And so all the hatcheries wanted to get their hands on them and make as many as they can and charge as much as they can for these rare birds with no standard, no guidelines on what these birds were actually supposed to be. So what you end up with are a bunch of Bielefelder out there that might lay small eggs. They might not be good egg layers. They might not be good meat birds. And a Bielefelder should be. a good dual purpose bird with a deep breast. I love them. Their body type is very similar to a Rhode Island Red. They should have that deep square looking breast, a flat top line, horizontal wing carriage and they lay some absolutely massive eggs. I hatched some eggs last year that were 85 grams. Wow. Those are big eggs. Huge eggs. Yes. Yeah. The hatchery quality, the egg color is all over the place. So a lot of times people describe the Bielefelder egg color as a terracotta color. It is a on the darker side of brown ideally. Egg color is not defined in the standard and nobody's going to hold that color against the bird. It's something that we, me as a breeder will be the last thing that I'm concerned with. I'm working on type right now, and then we'll get the color right, and then we'll worry about egg colors. Speckles on the eggs are common, again, coming from the Welsimer heritage. But yeah, they should be a large egg layer. They should be a good meat bird. And broodies. They are excellent broodies. Nice. That can always be handy to have a broody bird. Yes. So do they come in large fowl and bantam, or just large fowl? They do come in large fowl, so there is also the standard Bielefelder color, and there is also a silver Bielefelder that we're seeing in the U. S. now, and has been in Germany for quite some time. I haven't this one. I'm going to have to Google. Yeah. So you are working on a breed club and a breed standard. Yep. We have the North American Bielefelder Association established. We've got the standard that we worked with Gerd Roth. The breeds creator is actually when I started working with him last year, he was 80 years old, still an active poultry judge in Germany. He is so excited that we love these birds. that they have as many fans as they do in North America. When we started working together, the German standard is really surprising. It is not nearly as detailed as the APA standards are. And so I had so many questions. So even the people that had been using the German standard to try to breed to here in the United States also had the same questions. The definition for the tail, for example, was that it was to be an obtuse angle. That could be anything between 89 and, one degree. Asked Geerd, and Geerd says 45 degrees. And for the longest time, a lot of people were breeding for a nearly flat tail. I had a lower tail angle than the Rhode Island Reds. And so for, as a result, you see a lot of Bielefelder with low tails. You may notice that I never say Bielefelders plural because the plural of Bielefelder is Bielefelder. Like deer and fish. You don't say deers and you don't say fishes. We say Bielefelder in plural. Nice. That's a fun little fact. Yeah. I was corrected by a German. Come straight from the start. You're coming in with the standard, right? You can do it however you want to, right? Yeah, you really can. Yeah. How big do these birds get? I know we say large fowl, there's large fowl Orpingtons that are 10, 12 pounds and bigger. There's large fowl reds that are eight pounds. Like what is large fowl standard proposed on one of these? So the Bielefelder, a lot of places you'll see a lot of hatcheries will boast that the cocks can get, 12, 13 pounds. Bielefelder should never get that big. The standard for the cocks is just a little over nine pounds. And the standard for hens is seven and three quarter pounds. If they're dual purpose, you wouldn't want them as big as you can get them? No, because at some point you start tipping in favor of more bone mass than what you want, when you have that large of a bird, you have to have more bone mass to support that large of a bird. And for a dual purpose bird, you don't want more bone, you want more meat. Percentage of carcass wise, a smaller bird is going to give you more meat than a giant bird. That's also going to consume more feed. Okay. So if I understand correctly, they're also autosexing. Autosexing. Yeah, they're one of the handful of breeds that are autosexing at Hatch, and that's thanks to the barring gene. So the barring gene is sex linked, and females will only have one copy, barred males will have two copies. And what that ends up doing is diluting the chick down color on a wild type base, which is what the Bielefelder is built on, E plus wild type it will cause a head spot the head spot on the males, because they have two copies of this barring gene will have a larger head spot than the females. And that's another thing that, we were a little, we misunderstood. We were told when we, when I first started with the Bielefelder that, choose only your most, clearly marked females and males. chicks to move forward with. And my understanding was if a female had a head spot, then she wasn't clearly marked. It wasn't clearly a female or the white head spot was a defect. The white head spot is your barring gene. And if you get rid of all your females with the white head spots, you're not going to have good barring on your females. And as a result, when you look at pictures of Bielefelders, there are a lot of Bielefelder that. Hens, or pullets, that you can't even see the barring on. That's another thing I'm working on in my flock, is, keeping more of those pullets that have the nice clear head spots. So this year's growouts are looking way better than last year's growouts did. Okay, so they both have head spots, but one is darker than the other? They both have head spots. The males have a much larger head spot and the chick down overall on the males is lighter. They're almost a blonde color. The females are a a dark brown with an even darker brown back stripe with almost black stripes on each side of that back stripe. So how many days can you sex them for then after hatch? All day, every day. Oh, okay. So they always look different. Huh. Okay. So my brain went to my ducks. So I raised the Welsh Harlequin ducks and they're auto sexing too, but it's only for three days. On the fourth day, it's like magic and you can't sex them anymore. And so when you were talking, I was like trying to envision it. And my ducks was on my brain. Yeah, no, the little boys, they'll stay blonde. And then when their first set of juvenile feathers come in, you can already see, they're clearly barred and the females will have a wild type, almost autosomal barring looking, they get black barring on their brown feathers in their juvenile plumage, but the boys will definitely get the white barring that we're used to. Yeah, so they, they are clearly sexable from moment of hatch. How about their temperament? Bielefelder is known to be one of the best tempered roosters. When I first started with Bielefelder, my neighbor said, Hey, I got some Bielefelder chicks over here. You want some? I said, I've never heard of them. And what is that? I don't even know how to pronounce that because he had sent me a text. And I'm like, I got to Google this. And so I'm reading up on them. And all I found was that how great these Bielefelder roosters are. And I was like, they sound pretty cool. So I said, sure, I'll try some. And I grew them out and I loved them. And then I found some more kind of locally. And I went and picked up some more. And I said, these birds are clearly better quality than what I started out with. And So I got rid of the birds that I started out with, which were small egg layers poor confirmation, but still wonderful temperaments. I experienced the wide variety of quality in this breed in my short time with them. So I hear a lot of people that get frustrated with them. I tried Bielefelders, they were terrible. They ate all day. They didn't lay any eggs. And that sort of thing for those people, I hope they give the Bielfelder a second chance. Once we really start coming together as a group and as a breed organization and making the improvements that Gerd Roth feels like we need to make to bring this breed back into his vision of what it should be. In standard birds, a lot of people, They expect a standard bird to lay 300 eggs a year. And that's more in your highlines and birds that are commercially designed specifically to lay eggs. The standard bird is not going to lay 300, 300 eggs a year. Typically. No some would get in the two hundreds, but. I would say my Bielefelder are definitely in the 200s. They're said to be excellent winter layers and granted my birds were first year pullets this last winter through the dreadful freeze. They didn't miss hardly a day of laying. They laid right through that freeze. They've been laying, as long as they're not broody or now molting, they've been laying. I cannot fuss about their laying abilities. So what's the status with the APA? So we have a lot of work to do before we ever really get down to business. So we have confirmation meets that we need to get the judge to sign off on the rules for The path to APA acceptance are a little muddy. And I was talking to the standards committee about this. They're going to help us, through it, but there's a qualifying meet we need to have, I think, 16 birds and a judge sign off on those 16 birds before we can ever schedule our first we need a confirmation meet before we can ever. schedule our qualifying meet. Then once we have a qualifying meet set up, we need to ensure that we can bring in 50 birds in equal numbers of cockerels, bullets, cocks, and hens. And that will be held at a regional show somewhere. I'm hoping that we can maybe get that scheduled for sometime next fall. Then no less than a year after that, we would have a second qualifying meet where again, we would have to bring in 50 birds, equal numbers among the ages and sexes. And then the APA would make the decision on whether to admit us into the standard or not. So how many breeders in the States is working on this with you? How many breeders are working in the United States with you on this project? Right now, the North American Belofelder Association has about 40 members. We really haven't. there yet. We're still working on getting the website set up PayPal, financial accounts set up and all that sort of thing. I expect this organization will grow a fair bit. Bielefelder has a lot of fans. So one of the Bielefelder groups on Facebook Geard Roth was actually told that it had 3, 300 members and he was floored. And he said, do 3, 300 people really love my birds? It was cute. Wow. Good for him. Does he speak English? He does some. But it's easier for him to correspond in German. And I told him, you correspond in whatever is comfortable for you. I have Google Translate. And thank goodness for Google Translate, because that's how we go back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. I like, I use that quite often too. Yeah. And I can't believe out the fact that the secretary of the German Bielefelder Association has also played a huge role in getting our APA style standard written. Monica Keller Dicci. She's been the liaison between Gerd and I. She's really great about, she's on Facebook, he's not. So she's really great about fielding our questions as an organization back to him and getting some answers from us. It is just the coolest thing to be able to have the breed's actual creator to bounce questions off of. That's a, not many breeds can say that. No, I can only, the Buckeyes But I can't think of anything else. Yeah. Other than the newer breeds that they're trying to get APA accepted, like they are mines or something like that. Oh, it is pretty cool. So for a new person wanting to get into Bielefelder's where would they be a good place for them to get started? Our website is nabielefelderassociation. org. We will have a breeders list there for our members that are also breeders. That would be where I would ask them to start. I definitely would not order birds from a hatchery. Is the breeders list available to the public or do you have to be a member to see it? The breeders list will be available to the public once we get it up. So I will put a link to your website on our website for the podcast when it airs, because I can't spell Billy filter either because Carrie keeps it where I've spelt it wrong on my notes. So text me, I'd love to join your organization and read more about it, but I can't find it. So we're going to put that link in the show notes. You don't have to spell it either. Alrighty. It's been a joy to have you guys back or have you back again. So Carrie, you got anything else for Gina? So with the Bielefelder and I said it with an S and I shouldn't have, I apologize. With those, they're hardy birds for the climate. You just have to take certain precautions for their large comb. But aside from that they're just like any other large foul bird. And when it, as it relates to cold weather and hot weather. They are. And last year, you and I talked about having to bring a bunch of the birds inside when we had that dreadful freeze for a week. I did bring the Bielefelder cock inside the tack room and saved him from frostbite. But when I didn't realize that he wasn't out there to herd the hens to bed. And there was one night where they slept outside on the roosting bar in minus two degrees, no frostbite. They were fine, bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning. So I felt bad for them, but they were just, they were white with frost. That just proves what we always preach that they're fine out in the cold. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For me, winter preparation is more about my water. Yes. Cause it'll freeze and make a mess. Yup. And I made the mistake last year of, We used the five gallon metal waters, the gravity waters, and I had a heater underneath that water, which was fine, everything was great, but I was also using a metal gravity feeder, and I had one little hen that went and got a drink, got her waddles all wet, went over to that feeder, and went to eat, and it was Her little face was just covered in blood all down her neck. And I said, good God, what'd you do? Once I realized what I had done, yeah, metal feeders were gone. Yeah, we all make mistakes. Yeah, we do. I'm a huge fan of trough style feeders. Yeah. I get it. Or do you just make your own? So I have. Most of the ones that I have, I made out of a six inch PVC. And you can, so if you have a, like for my grow out, I have a six inch piece of PVC and right above that is hovering a essentially upside down a frame house. And cause it's six inches. It's a total of eight inches tall with the way the wood is. But I can put 50 pounds of feed in that trough at one time. So for my grow outs, when they're young birds and they're in this huge pan together, I can go in there and I got two of those that are five feet long each, and I can put a lot of feet in that'll last them for a couple of days. The other ones that I have are six inch piece of PVC with the end caps. Screwed to a four by six. That's about a foot long. Screw it to that. So they can't knock it over when they jump up on it and try to perch on it. But yeah, it's simple. We use the PVC pipes to cut in half lengthwise. We, I think my oldest one is going on 12 years now. You can't hardly destroy them. They're PVC pipe and I've had different ways. David's made them different ways, but. My favorite is where he just puts a cap on the end and he screws straight down in a four by four So the four by four stabilizes it so instead of being on the end, which I have some like that too the originals The best ones are where he put the four by fours on the bottom and drilled straight down. Yep That's where I got the idea for mine made that are made like that now in some of my breeding pens I used a three inch Piece that's about three feet long Put end caps on it, screwed it to a four by four for weight to keep it upright. And then I actually have eye bolts on the ends where they come up to a piece that I can adjust the height. Keep the feeder height going up so they don't, they waste a lot less when they have to reach for it. Yeah. I, my big thing is finding something that's less wasteful for the chicks and the growing birds. My big birds. They don't waste hardly anything. And then my babies just are messy. So for chicks, what I have had success with in Hatching out a bunch at once and putting them together is there's a turbo feeder that I actually, I learned about them at the APPPA conference. And I was like, you people are growing two to 300 chicks at one time in your brooder. If I'm only doing like 50, I definitely shouldn't have a problem. And I don't, I'll take these and I've got a couple of one by sixes and. At first when they're babies, I will just sit it on the bottom on the floor. And then when they get a little higher, I'll put another one by six on it. And then I have a one by six. I have to screw together. And then I have one that's three high that screwed together. And by then it's time to kick him out of the brooder. It works really well. Try it. I've been eyeballing them. I'm like, man, I don't know. They're, you can get them real inexpensive. And they're actually some of the more inexpensive feeders that I've ever tried. Yeah. Do they have a lid on them or are they all open top? They are all open top unless you get a, the round ones and you get a five gallon pail lid and you sit it on top of there and you put a brick on it. Okay. Because I've, when I hatch out in the wintertime, when it's really cold, that's what I have that third block for. And then they'll tend to want to get on top of it to roost. And so put a five gallon pale lid on it, put a brick on top of that. Generally they don't knock it over until it's empty. Yeah. I'd want to put something on top of them. Cause by two weeks old, they're going to be having a party inside there. They will.

  Carey: 26:49

  Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

Turkey Talk Heritage and Broad Breasted

There are 2 kinds of turkeys, heritage and meat. It is important to know the difference and choose the best for your needs.

Turkey Talk

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• Transcript

  Tony: 0:00

  Welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast, where feathers meet fun. Your podcast hosts are Carey Blackmon and Jennifer Bryant. Together, they work hard to bring you the latest news and information from the world of poultry. So get ready for eggciting interviews, foul facts, and more. Now here's Carey and Jennifer.

  0:17

  Mhm.

  Jennifer: 0:25

  Today is just the two of us and we're just going to talk turkey today. Fall's coming up. We're getting, starting to think about Thanksgiving and turkey day. And it's a good time to talk turkey, I think. What do you think?

  Monica: 0:40

  The Poultry Nerds Podcast is brought to you, in part, by the generous support of eggfoam dot com. Your trusted source to ship hatching eggs safely. They have several sizes available from small button quail to turkey size. Their shippers are cut to fit into United States Post Office complementary boxes to make your shipping a breeze. Check out eggfoam dot com

  Carey: 1:01

  Yeah, it is. It is a time to talk turkey. I've, I actually recently ordered some meat turkeys and I have them in some tractors now. getting them ready. Conveniently ordered two batches. I call one Thanksgiving and one Christmas. So yeah, it's time to talk turkey.

  Jennifer: 1:22

  Now, meat birds, they, they take four months to get from beginning to end?

  Carey: 1:28

  Roughly, yeah. There's, Jeff and I have had a lot of conversations about nutrition and finishing them off and getting them bigger quicker. Or even bigger in, the four months. And I'm using a feed ration now that I'm testing out to see if the 30 pound mark, and that is processed 30 pounds in four to four and a half months,

  Jennifer: 2:01

  I can't even imagine trying to cook a 30 pound Turkey,

  Carey: 2:05

  like I'm thinking when we're having this conversation, I'm like, okay, a 30 pound bird, you process it and you. May have a 20 pound. He goes, no, these birds get huge if you feed them correctly. And if you look at the nutritional side of it, they do have. requirements than chickens do. So it makes sense, but I gotta say I've had them for three weeks now. And some of them are about the size of a game chicken.

  Jennifer: 2:40

  Yeah. So meat birds that you have. They come in two kinds, the whites and the bronze, right? Which one do you have?

  Carey: 2:50

  Bronze. I actually talked to a couple people in my area that I knew had raised them in the past. To see what the market was because you know me, I don't care what color the feathers are, but there are a certain amount of people that do and especially some cultures. So he was like, hands down the bronze. I said, really? I don't know. And so the guy that I talked to about a lot of this stuff isn't. A friend of mine, he's, and he's Hispanic. And we talk a lot about the culture. Those of you that don't know, I have a couple of kids that are Hispanic as well. And, he said that the only thing that he can figure out is for the ones that are actually from Mexico that grew up on a Ranchero, it's like home. Nobody makes it like mama made it. If that's what they grew, that's what they had as a kid. So when they make that, it reminds them of being a kid, which is why they would much more prefer a traditional or heritage bird over a like a Cornish or something like that on the chicken side.

  Jennifer: 4:17

  So I would think that the white bird would pluck cleaner. Do you not think so?

  Carey: 4:23

  So my pluck is orange and it doesn't know what color. Bird goes in it. And for me, the only white birds I have processed a couple of American breasts that were fully feathered, but to me, it's a different, like when you're dealing with a Cornish and I'm not sure the turkeys may be the same way that are designed for that. But it's like the Cornish have been bred to not have a whole lot of feathers because they are very hot birds and, feathers insulate them. That may be why the plucking process is a lot easier because, you're Cornish when you posted the video on your Facebook of them waddling around in the yard, they didn't have a lot of feathers.

  Jennifer: 5:15

  No,

  Carey: 5:15

  they don't. Mine didn't have a whole lot of feathers either, 30 seconds in a plucker. They're clean.

  Jennifer: 5:20

  So your turkeys are three weeks old now. Do they have a lot of feathers?

  Carey: 5:24

  Yes.

  Jennifer: 5:25

  Okay, it'd be interesting to see how this works out.

  Carey: 5:28

  Like my Cornish, it's like the first couple of weeks they have what I call on a chicken their baby feathers. And then when they lose all their baby feathers and get their big boy feathers, they didn't really get a whole lot. So I'm thinking that maybe the turkeys will do the same, which means I need to get them out really quick because that should happen over the next week. Otherwise I'm going to have a ridiculous amount of feathers in my brooder barn.

  Jennifer: 6:01

  Okay. So interesting. You've got them out on a tractor already at three weeks. Okay. How long did you breed them inside? A

  Carey: 6:11

  week.

  Jennifer: 6:13

  Wow. So that's a whole different.

  Carey: 6:15

  Like we're having a hundred during the day, some days and high nineties and we're 70 plus at night and so I'm using an Alumi-Coop, which has a really thick tarp, like top on it. Like 18 to 20 mils. And so if you, the way my property is, the wind pretty much flows in the same direction all the time. So if I put the tractor where the back of it goes all the way to the ground and it doesn't let a lot of the wind come through, as long as they're on that back half of it, they don't get wind and the heat stays in there.

  Jennifer: 7:00

  Do you have a heat lamp in there?

  Carey: 7:02

  Not anymore. I did for about a week and a half. I'm using a I think it's a five by six. This is the smallest one they have for to brood them in. And I put 50 of them in my 100 gallon stock tank and that's what got me past the first few days. And then bump this, I need them out of my barn. Put them in the tractor and I put one of the red 250 watt heat lamps. I don't like heat lamps. So I stuck that in there. And one morning I went to go check on them and they felt hot and I had it towards the front. They were all on the far side. At six o'clock in the morning. So that tells me, Hey, they don't need this heat source. They're hot. And I looked on my weather app and saw the nighttime lows for the next few days. That they were about the same. I pulled the heat and since pulling the heat, I've lost one bird.

  Jennifer: 8:08

  We jumped right into the conversation about the meat birds, so let's back up for just a minute. Yeah. For those people who aren't familiar with turkeys, broad breasted whites and broad breasted bronze are meat birds. There are bronze heritage birds. We're going to get to that in just a minute. So we're talking about meat birds, cause that's what you do. And so you brooded them inside for a week on shavings.

  Carey: 8:36

  Peat moss.

  Jennifer: 8:37

  Okay. And then you moved them out, but you're in Alabama. It's July. It's, 800 degrees here. So they're doing pretty good. You would never do a heritage bird that way. You'd lose all of them if you did

  Carey: 8:48

  that. No, they would have been gone before the first week. It don't matter if you had 50 of them, they'd have been gone.

  Jennifer: 8:56

  So you have to know what kind of turkey you have. to successfully brood them and raise them up. So what percentage protein are you feeding these meat birds?

  Carey: 9:11

  It's around 29%. So I make my own feed and I do use a formula. Sometimes measuring when I'm in a hurry and I'm making it for me, not for somebody else could be loose. So it could be 30. It's definitely the 28 percent that the recipe says it is, but it may be 29, 30 plenty of lysine, methionine, vitamin A, D and E. I use a lot of fish meal and, all the nutrients and stuff that's recommended for them. I did not use a commercially available feed. Now, the next time I do this. I am going to use a brand name that is highly available in the southeast at any feed store that's big enough to have a credit card machine. I'm going to use one of those. Side by side. So one tractor is going to have that company feet. The other tractor is going to have mine and I'm going to go OCD weighing them every week, the whole life and all that good stuff this time. I wanted to try this recipe mainly because. The guy that I talked about earlier, he and I went together to order birds because obviously the more you order, the cheaper they are. And when I told him the price that I could get them from a commercial house, he's been buying from the same hatcheries that everybody buys from and paying almost twice as much. We're looking at that. We went in together. I'm feeding mine this. And he's feeding his whatever he normally feeds and we're going, I'm going to give him one of mine and I want him to try it because I've been trying to convince this guy that nutrition, better nutrition is better bird, taste and everything. So we're going to compare processed weights. And taste and texture.

  Jennifer: 11:28

  So he's being a bagged feed from the store.

  Carey: 11:34

  Yes, he feeds a bag feed from the store. The 1 that he's feeding is a all lock type that's available central Alabama ish It's, I know the guy that makes it, nice guy, and, but the feed, people feed it to chickens, turkeys, and goats. It's a mix of a lot of stuff. That's what he feeds. And we're trying mine.

  Jennifer: 12:03

  So you're more feed nutrition orientated than I am. But my personal opinion is an all flock is what you would feed to keep your critters alive, but not necessarily an optimal feed.

  Carey: 12:17

  Yeah, because if you look at an offlock, they're typically lower in protein because it's designed for everything. And some things have a higher need than others. And some if you look at a quail. When a quail is first born, the first three weeks of their life, four weeks

  Jennifer: 12:37

  hatched,

  Carey: 12:38

  whatever hatched born. So when a quail is first hatched the first month, their protein needs to be above 25, 26%. The day the first egg pops out, you could drop that down to 18. And you're good to go for the rest of that bird's life. Some birds, it needs to be more steady, but like you said, an all flock is, it's a generic thing for people that want to feed the same thing to their goats and their chickens.

  Jennifer: 13:09

  Yep. Okay. So are you going to feed the 28, 30 percent protein all four months?

  Carey: 13:16

  No, the last month, I want to say it drops down to 18 or 20. I'd have to look back at my recipes, but there's like a so for the grower phase of their life, I'm using the same formulation as a starter and I just ground it, it's a mash the whole life of the bird. That's what commercial people use is mash. And so that, that's going for the first month. And then I have a formula for developing and that's the next little lower on the protein, but higher in some of the vitamins and amino acids to help them develop better. And then the finisher it kind of tapers out on some of the things because some of the stuff you, that affect the taste, if you lower the concentration, you get a more tender bird. and a juicier bird without the high fat because, nobody wants the yellow fat.

  Jennifer: 14:22

  Now don't say that. There's a purpose for it.

  Carey: 14:25

  Yes, you do want some because you want to be able to use it to make your broth and everything else. But, if you go to the grocery store and you look at their chicken and their turkey that's thawed out and fresh, there's huge chunks. And you're paying for that.

  Jennifer: 14:48

  All right. So you're dropping the protein to, what did you say, 18, 20 percent for the last month?

  Carey: 14:55

  Yes, ma'am.

  Jennifer: 14:56

  All right. And then you're you're harvesting them at roughly four months. Putting them in the freezer. And now for those of you that are new to turkeys, you, I'm going to say you cannot, and there's going to be people that argue with me, but you cannot keep a meat bird for a length of time. There's exceptions to every rule. I understand that. Yeah. But meat birds are too heavy. Their heart will give out, their legs will give out and they cannot reproduce on their own. They are more similar to a Cornish chicken than a heritage bird.

  Carey: 15:40

  So I've had a conversation in depth about that. And there are different genetic lines. Like you said, some you can, some you can't. The advice that I was given was. If you, cause I, I talked about having some for breeders and I was told if I wanted to do that I needed to cut the protein and the fat quick instead of waiting till the developer stage and Once the birds are fully grown They recommend you feeding them A very strict diet to maintain the weight. And if you do that and keep them healthy at a lower weight, they will be breeders, unlike what, like you can't do that with a Cornish cross, but I'm told that you can with turkeys and me, I am going to figure that out with a few of these once I can tell I'll pick me a good Tom and a couple of others and, I'll get him a few ladies and I'll pull them out and then I'll put them in a separate pen and they'll be on a different diet.

  Jennifer: 17:03

  But you're very particular. You're precise with your nutrition. And that's what it would take to keep that kind of turkey going.

  Carey: 17:12

  Oh yeah. You gotta be real, real particular. Sure. To maintain that or you're going to go check on them one day and they'll all be dead.

  Jennifer: 17:21

  Now, here's an interesting question that people probably don't think about. Are your turkeys roosting or are they going to roost?

  Carey: 17:29

  Yes, and how I

  Jennifer: 17:31

  ground

  Carey: 17:32

  in my tractors. I do have. Roosting bars that I think the lowest one is eight or 10 inches. I'd have to double check. And I want to say the highest is 12, but it may be 14. They're not very high.

  Jennifer: 17:54

  Inches off the ground.

  Carey: 17:56

  Yeah, that's inches. They're not very high, which for any larger bird. Anything over one to two feet is too much. I would say like for a red or an Orpington, even if you go over 24 inches, On a roosting bar, the bird would be okay while they're younger, but they're going to break their legs sooner or later.

  Jennifer: 18:22

  I feel people gasping and clutching at their pearls saying, Oh my, you have to put roost up higher. You're going to be shocked when I tell you what mine

  Carey: 18:31

  are. There's for your Orpingtons, the rooster, Big scene. A roost is a roost. It's a place for them to get to sleep. And if you've done your job with providing them a safe enclosure to go into, if the thing is six inches off the ground, it performs its duty.

  Jennifer: 18:53

  All right. So let's talk about the heritage birds now. And that's what I have. And those I do red bourbons. So heritage is the breed, and they come in a variety of colors.

  Carey: 19:08

  So

  Jennifer: 19:08

  it would be like saying a buff orpington. Orpington would be the breed, buff would be the color.

  Carey: 19:15

  Yeah.

  Jennifer: 19:15

  So my birds take. almost two years to fully mature. So you have to have a very long patient span. In order to do your heritage turkeys.

  Carey: 19:33

  Yes, you do.

  Jennifer: 19:35

  And my Tom out there is two and a half years old right now. Cause I cycle them out as I work on, I'm finishing up my coloring my color breeding part. I'm fine tuning it with their tails. And I'm almost there. I think I've got some of his boys coming up in the grow up pen where their tail markings are exactly right. But he's two and a half years old and I had him up for my NPIP testing and he is 33 pounds, 35 pounds. If he's an ounce, he's a big boy,

  Carey: 20:15

  but like your bronze, I gotta say the bronze is probably one of my favorite heritage birds. The bourbon, sorry, because they're like that red color. It's like a red and white Rhode Island red. That, that red color is just so beautiful, especially when the sun hits it. And yours, I've seen the videos on Facebook and I've seen them in person and I would like to have a field of them just walking around.

  Jennifer: 20:49

  Yeah, I've got them out. I've got them loose today because it had all that rain last night and it's so muddy and they're run. So I turned them out today, but I had them up looking, my grow outs are about five months old now, and I'm really got some really nice lacing going on their chests. I'm really excited about my grouts but let's get back to why I have heritage and you've got meat birds. So you're raising birds to process for your family and to sell. And I raise birds because, I think they're pretty and I like them, but we eat them. You can eat the heritage birds personally. That we've been eating them now for maybe, eight to ten years or so. And I can't see me ever going back to a meat bird. So A lot

  Carey: 21:41

  of people say that. The flavor profile is different. And it's an amazing thing. It's like eating a heritage chicken over a Cornish cross.

  Jennifer: 21:51

  Yes some of the differences the biggest difference that shocked the fire out of me when you cook a, butterball or a store bought turkey, you want to cook it low and slow and baste it and all of those yummy things. And when you cook a heritage bird, you put it in the pot and put it in the oven at 425 for an hour. And that's it. It's done. And it's fun. Yes. The first time somebody told me to do that I was like, whatever, I'm not listening to you. But then I got sick. Everybody always gets sick at Thanksgiving. I got sick and I forgot to put the bird in. And it was like two hours before dinner, and I was like, whatever, we're gonna try it, and shoot, that's the way you do it. I've never cooked it any different stance.

  Carey: 22:42

  I've never cooked a heritage turkey, but I have ate one, and they, if I had the space and the time, I would have heritage birds to grow out for my family. Now, doing it for other people is a lot of work. It's two years, two and a half years. So you have to plan ahead for this. If I'm thinking flavor profile, ease of cooking, that whole thing. Yeah. I didn't know you don't do anything. You just, You

  Jennifer: 23:20

  put a little water in the bottom of the pan and cook it. All right. So let's go back to the beginning. We, me and you get off on these tangents. So let's go back to the beginning. So your turkey hens won't lay until they're about a year old, but they lay better their second and third year. Okay. So the first year you might get I don't know for me. Anyway, I'm not gonna speak for everybody. For me, you might get 30 or 40 eggs out of a 1st year hen. But when you get up into 2 and 3 year old hens, they're going to lay all summer. So I'm still getting eggs right now.

  Carey: 23:54

  So how many a week do you get?

  Jennifer: 23:57

  I only have four hens, so I probably get a dozen eggs a week. They don't lay every day.

  Carey: 24:03

  That's not bad though.

  Jennifer: 24:05

  No, it's not, and it's too late in the year. I'm not hatching anymore, so we're eating those, or I'm feeding them to the pigs. So a turkey will build a nest when she's going broody. They're really prone to broodiness. They fit right in with the cochins and orpingtons on this farm. Mine go broody all the time. When they're going to build a nest, they lay their eggs right there. When they have no interest in building a nest, they're more like a duck, and they just drop an egg wherever they happen to be when it decides to come out. You never quite know how long that egg's been sitting there when you find it in the tall grass. So

  Carey: 24:46

  I have been looking at developing a nesting box. I've done a little bit of research on that. And from what I have seen, a turkey actually does better with a open top nesting box. That's about a foot square. I can see that. So I talked to Frank Reese Jr. And he actually, I saw a picture of what he has for his heritage birds. And they're huge like yours and it's a one foot square. Open top. Now you try to do that with a lot of hens, a lot of chickens. They, it's like they want to go high. Yeah. They want something covered. And people talk about putting curtains over the front and everything else for chickens. Turkeys want to do their business out in the open.

  Jennifer: 25:42

  Yeah, so mine will nest out in the run, and I leave the grass high at the fence line, so they'll nest in there. I have in the past used those big galvanized steel tubs, And but then you get all three of them, four of them, however many you got, all wanting to nest together, the eggs get broken they're very clumsy birds so let's go back to the beginning. So you get the egg, it's going to be 28 days to incubate it. And then brooding them, you have to keep them hot, dry, and active. So dry, I use stall pellets. I have been through the entire gamut of everything, including peat moss. I have settled on stall pellets. I do not wet them. I just. throw them in the tub straight out of the bag, make them about two to three inches deep, and I use a heat plate, and then I put either quail or chicks in there with them. You never put ducks in with anything because they're too wet, but I have used quail and I've used chicks, or if you're hatching in succession, use put your freshly hatched poults in with your weak old poults. And the reason being is they will keep them active and moving and they're very inquisitive and so they'll go see why everybody else is, hey what are you eating over there and I'm going to come and check it out too. But the very first hatch you have to be really careful Because they just want to be hot, and so they'll lay under that brooder plate, and they'll never come out to eat, and they'll essentially just, I don't know, sleep themselves to death, is the right word. So you've got to get them up and get them active. But no, you don't have to dip their beak in water, you don't have to hand feed them none of those things. Just simply throw a more active bird in there to get them up and moving. Now here's where people usually mess up, is because the birds are bigger, they want to put them outside quicker, and You have to pretty much brood them about three months and that seems insane, but you've got to keep them off the dirt for three months if you want them to live. If you don't, if you're good with losses, throw them out. But if you want them all to live a hundred percent three months and mine, I have a hundred percent success rate. So I've

  Carey: 28:28

  had people tell me that It was insane for me to put mine out as fast, even, the meat birds were, they, they do typically go out quicker. They said that was insane. And I was like you know what? I don't want the mess and I'm going to give him a

  Jennifer: 28:45

  fire out of me. Honestly, I didn't know you had done that. So y'all heard it on live podcast. You shocked the fire out of me about it.

  Carey: 28:55

  But and they're doing well now, I will say, they're eating a nutritionally balanced diet. And I have a product called jitter juice that I use. It's an all natural electrolyte thing. That's got some apple cider vinegar and molasses and a few other things that are all organic in it. And it has a smell to it. And when they're like a day old, when I first got them, I put a couple of drops of it in their mouth. And I guess that, that got them the taste and the smell. So when I put it in their water they go to it. Because like you said, a while ago, the first time I got turkeys last year, I just thought it's turkeys, it's a big chicken. Do it the same. And I think day five, maybe four day five. I go, my, my brooder, it's a brooder, it's off the ground, it's warm, the barn was heated, they had heat plates, I did all that stuff, plenty of clean water, food, and I go check on them, and the water doesn't, like it doesn't seem like they're hardly any gone. And I'm like they're a couple of days old. They don't drink a whole lot, which is bullcrap. They drink a lot, no matter their age. And I want to say it was day five. I went down there and there was no poult running around and I'm like, They didn't get out. Where are they? I lifted up the brooder plate, and literally in a 24 hour period, every one of them had went to sleep, and they wasn't waking up.

  Jennifer: 30:42

  Exactly. They just, I don't know, I guess it's like when it's cold outside, and you're laying in front of the fireplace under a big blanket. You don't want to get up. I guess it's the same thing, but any, except for ducks, don't use waterfowl, but any other bird that you have. handy, be it quail or chicks or whatever, just go them in with the turkeys. And then if you're hatching every week, use the week older poults at that point to keep the fresh ones active. So it's very common for me to have a brooder with, three different age groups in there.

  Carey: 31:20

  So like with these, I do have, about half a dozen gamefowl living with them. And the I can definitely pick the gamefowl out now because they look like runts. They're black too, so I can't tell by color difference, but they're essentially the runts of the bunch now. I hatched them out about two weeks before the turkeys arrived. So mine, my turkeys went in with two week old. And I put the stuff right in their mouth and I mix it in with their water. So they go to that and the feed, it smells, I would put milk in and eat it. It smells like really good oatmeal and I don't even like oatmeal. There's that, but if you don't have feed that has a smell to it and you don't put stuff in your water to. attract them and you don't put a quail or a chicken in with them, then you're going to need to spend a lot of time with them.

  Jennifer: 32:28

  Yep.

  Carey: 32:29

  I've heard of people spending, like going out and spending 20 to 30 minutes, five times a day with turkeys in their first week. I'm like, Bro, get you some chickens.

  Jennifer: 32:42

  Yeah, so chickens solve a lot of problems.

  Carey: 32:46

  Yeah, they do.

  Jennifer: 32:48

  So let's talk about once a month or three months, and then I put them out on grass. Now the reason I had asked you about roost, is I was just wondering because a meat bird is going to have a thicker leg, they're going to be heavier, their structure isn't the same. So a heritage bird like mine, a lot of people don't understand they can fly like a bird. like they can get 50 60 feet off the ground, they can get up in high trees I mean they can move long distances. A full grown turkey might have a six or seven foot wingspan. You have to be prepared for these big birds. You can't just put them in a tractor supply. store bought coop. They need some space. Just logistically getting up onto the roost, they're going to spread their wings and they have to have that space to get up on their roost. Now, I use a two by eight board and I have mine One is two feet off the ground and one is four feet off the ground. So the two foot one is, I call it a bounce board. They get up on it and then they bounce up to the four foot. Now I know there's a. A lot of people that, Oh, turkeys want to roost high. Sure they do. They're going to go to the tippy top of a tree. If you let them, just because they can and they want to, doesn't mean that you as the owner, as the caregiver have to let them. And I might explain to you why I do four feet. Now I'm just a little over five feet tall and I'm the only one that's going to go in there and catch. Turkeys. And the best way to catch a turkey is when they're on the roost. Now this is just assuming you can't walk up to your turkey in the yard and pick it up, but if you have to go in there and catch a bunch of them, When they bounce up to their roost, their balance is off for maybe two and a half seconds. While their balance is off and they're folding their wings in, you reach up both hands and grab both of their ankles from behind. And you swing them down. And as you swing them down there, their wings are going to naturally come out. Watch their wings because I have been caught multiple times across the bridge in my nose, which is why I swing them down, not towards me anymore. And you will see stars. So I promise you I'm touching my nose right now cause I remember how much it hurts. But anyway, you grab them from behind as they're regaining their balance and you swing them down. Once they're down, then you can put them back up into the crook of your elbow. So let's see, not visual here. So you're going to swing them up in their chest. It's going to go into the crook of your elbow. So their head is looking away from you. Then you can transfer their feet. to the same hand that they're laying in the arm of. If that, can you visualize what I'm talking about?

  Carey: 35:56

  I tell people you carry it like a football.

  Jennifer: 35:59

  Exactly. And they'll just sit there.

  Carey: 36:01

  One point back towards your

  Jennifer: 36:02

  elbow.

  Carey: 36:04

  And then you have the other end or the feet

  Jennifer: 36:07

  in your hand. Exactly. And at that point, and most of the time you're doing that, you're, you're assessing the bird, you're picking it up to harvest it, or you're picking it up for your MPIP tester, for whatever reason you're picking it up. But at that point, their wing, their outer wing is accessible for the MPIP tester or to carry it to the chopping block, whatever you're going to do with it. Assess its tail feathers. In my case, I'm big on trying to get those tails correct. So I can fan those tail feathers out cause that's what's in front of me. But that's how you catch and carry a turkey. I have seen many people try to put a roost up, six or seven feet up in the air. Cause. Hey, my turkeys like to roost up really high. That's fine and dandy. How are you going to catch them? I can't reach seven feet up in the air. And we're talking about swinging a 30, 35 pound bird towards you with a seven foot wingspan. You've got to think this through.

  Carey: 37:03

  Some crap's going to happen. So for me, like going back to what you said earlier about the detractor supply coop, if I wanted to have some turkeys, I would say they have a 10 by 10 dog kennel. That has a roof. You get one of those and you get a two foot a four foot place for them to roost. I use inch and a half PVC pipe on the dog kennel type with the chain link fence. I'll use that PVC pipe and run it in the corners through the chain link. And it's easy and I can put them at different levels, but in a 10 by 10, I would say anything over a trio would be pushing it for space because they need a lot of space and in a 10 by 10, three would be tight.

  Jennifer: 38:03

  I would be more apt to use like a portable saw horse. With a flatter top on the top for them to roost on just for especially up north, where their toes might be exposed. But yeah, you could definitely do it with a chain link kennel. That would definitely work. They don't care, if they get rained on, they don't care. They shed just like a duck would almost. So let's see, what else can we talk about turkeys? They pace, they're travelers, they're inquisitive, but really they're quirky personality wise. They have what I call stranger danger. If you put anything inside of their coop or anywhere near them, they'll all stand around in a circle and put their head down and they chatter with each other. And it, they pop their noise is like a pop in noise and they'll just, what is it? What is it? And one of my most popular videos I ever put out there was all of them in a circle looking at a bowl of grit. For 20 minutes. The video wasn't that long, but it went on for 20 minutes. They just had their head out and popping, looking at this bowl of grit that I had given them.

  Carey: 39:17

  And that was talking about grit. I am a firm believer. That may be the only thing that a chicken and a turkey are similar in, and that they need grit their whole life, and it doesn't matter if you're feeding them mash, maybe you can get away with a less percentage ratio of grit than you would with a pellet because, grit's designed to break up the food. But, studies show that grit makes Them process a higher percentage of the feed, which means they're getting more of the nutrients out of it, which means they grow better and they look better. And if you feed a pellet, whether it's to a chicken or a turkey, and you give it the grit that they need, they're getting more of the nutrients. And because they're getting more of the nutrients out of the feed, they're going to eat less because they're just like people. They eat when they're hungry. They don't when they're not. And so when they eat less, you save some money in raising them because, two and a half years for a heritage bird, you're going to go through some feet.

  Jennifer: 40:29

  So two things there. Let's, I see this a lot on Facebook. Don't overthink giving them grit. You can dump it in a pile in the corner. You can put it in their food. You can put it in a separate dog bowl. Don't overthink it. It's just rock. And it's not gonna, I don't know, dissolve out in the rain or whatnot. So I have a little bit of gravel in all of my coops in front of the door. So I just, I don't know, scoop full. Of grit in that gravel spot in front of the door and when it's gone, I just put some more in there. I don't overthink grit

  Carey: 41:04

  No, I definitely wouldn't because grit if you have if your runs are like a sandy or Rocky or anything like the dirt we have in the south You've Throw that crap on the ground. There are a lot of people that think, Oh, I got a lot of rocks. They get enough grit, which that's not how that works, but I'm a huge person that says you do not feed food on the ground, but you can throw grit on the ground.

  Jennifer: 41:35

  Oh yeah, definitely throw grit on the ground. And what was the other thing? Just a second ago. Oh, two and a half years. Oh, two and a half years. You don't have to wait two and a half years to eat them. We start eating them at about eight or nine months. But unlike the meat birds where you have to, otherwise they start getting too big. You have to harvest them at four or four and a half months.

  Carey: 42:03

  The

  Jennifer: 42:03

  heritage birds, they're going to be more like, hey, I think we'll have turkey tomorrow or next week or whatever. So you go out and you harvest one. They will only get bigger and juicier and more flavorful. So unless you just need them off the feed bill or you don't want them any bigger you can get probably eight pounds of meat off of an eight month old hen and maybe 13 pounds dressed weight on a Jake.

  Carey: 42:33

  Yep.

  Jennifer: 42:34

  But if you for me, what we do is we'll start. We're actually going to start harvesting them here in the next month or so. I'm just waiting for this heat to break and we'll just harvest the biggest one. And then next month we'll do another one and next month we'll do another one. And we don't actually finish harvesting until breeding season, which is like February. So we'll have, we'll be down to all just breeders come February. So it's more of a progression versus. all at once because harvesting a turkey is a much bigger job than harvesting a quail.

  Carey: 43:16

  Oh yeah.

  Jennifer: 43:20

  All the scars on my arms are from harvesting turkeys.

  Carey: 43:26

  I can see that. Yeah.

  Jennifer: 43:29

  It's been fun today talking Turkey. So if you want Turkey for Thanksgiving, you better run out and get you one today to have it run out by then, it's going to

  Carey: 43:40

  be,

  Jennifer: 43:42

  yeah, or find somebody that

  Carey: 43:43

  has them. And if y'all have any questions, make sure you send us an email to poultry nerd podcast, gmail. com, but in the subject line Turkey talk, and we both get that email. So we'll reply.

  Jennifer: 43:56

  We will. All right till next week.

  Carey: 44:01

  See y'all later Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.