Poultry Shows from Egg to Champion's Row w/ Rip Stalvey p.1
Rip Stalvey is an APA judge and in the Hall of Champions. We are honored he shares with us how to get started in Exhibition Poultry. His dedication shines thru in this great discussion.
-
Carey: 0:01
I have asked many times, many questions about poultry shows, up a backyard flock, what breeding should look like, all that kind of stuff. And today with us, we have none other than the legendary Rip Stalvey. Oh, geez. And we're going to talk to him about Poultry Shows from Egg to Champion's Row.
Intro: 0:31
Mhm.
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
Rip Stalvey: 1:01
Hi, Rip. How you doing? It's good to be here with y'all and I'm looking forward to it. What I would like to share with your listeners is information that I wish I had known when I decided to get into showing. And back all those years ago I started when I was, about 17 and I'll be 73 this year. It was very different. There was no internet, there was no instant information. You had to read a book or write a letter or call somebody. And It was a slow learning process, but I think one of the first things that I asked myself when I wanted to show poultry, why did I want to do it? And my biggest reason was that I had realized that it would help me breed better birds long term and continually improve my flock. I knew that I would have to get good birds, that I would have to learn how to condition those birds, and I'd learn how to breed those birds because it's not simply go grab a hen outta the yard and take her down to a poultry show. Now you can do that, but you're setting yourself up for to be disappointed if you do that way.
Carey: 2:32
And I've seen some that it looks like that's what they did.
Rip Stalvey: 2:36
It is no doubt. I did that. Yeah. So I knew better and it was. It was very disappointing for me because I thought, I had to show winter there and I didn't need place.
Jennifer Bryant: 2:48
So what do you need to get started then if it's not a hen out of the backyard?
Rip Stalvey: 2:53
You gotta have good genetics. That's the bottom line. I remember somebody convincing me one time I could, but, Pay$5 for a bird and improve it through breeding. I probably could, but I soon lost patience with that because that's a very long term process. You, if you start with good genetics from what I like to call a foundational breeder, that's somebody who is working with a particular breed that you are years ahead. You cut years off your learning process.
Jennifer Bryant: 3:32
So that would be the difference between standard bread and hatchery or utility stock, right?
Rip Stalvey: 3:37
Oh, absolutely. Hatchery or utility stock never do well in an open poultry show. You've got to have and I, some of your listeners may not know the difference, but standard bred means that those birds are bred to meet a written standard as closely as possible. The big hatcheries don't, I don't have time to do that. And I get that. And I understand. And I don't want to come across as I'm being negative about. Hatchery birds, because I'm not, I bought an awful lot of hatchery it's the gateway to wanting better birds, or at least it was for me, and I know it has been for some other reasons, I found one of the things that I got the most out of showing birds was the camaraderie and the friendships that I've made. I, some of the, my dearest and long term friends I have met through showing poultry, and there's a great fellowship that goes on in that. That group of folks and I realized for some it's the competition aspect plays a heavy role Although, I enjoyed winning. I'm not gonna story to you about that It was nice and it was fun, but that's not really what I did it for I did it to make the birds better and that was as much my reward from showing poultry as any trophies or ribbons
Jennifer Bryant: 5:11
Okay, so you mentioned getting started with good genetics. What else do you need to get started?
Rip Stalvey: 5:18
I think, Jennifer, one of the most important things you can have is a good mentor.
Jennifer Bryant: 5:24
Absolutely.
Rip Stalvey: 5:25
Somebody you can bounce ideas off of. You know you can go to and get good information. You know that you can trust what they're going to tell you. They're not always going to tell you what you want to hear, and that's because they're being a good mentor. They're going to tell you what you need to hear. You're going to need to decide what breed you want, and good grief when, if you look in the APA standard of perfection, and if you're going to start breeding and showing, you need to have a standard of perfection because that's the standard you're breeding to, and that's the standard that the judges go by when they're judging your birds. Some folks invariably ask me, how do you choose a breed? I think. I've always been partial to large fowl. So I think I lean naturally towards some of the large fowl breeds, but with today's economy, they're not the most economical choice large fowl eat a lot more feed than do Banhams because Banhams are roughly 20 percent of the weight of a large fowl, 20 to 25%. You may want to go the waterfowl route, but they require some special infrastructure. They, a lot of the times they need ponds and waters and that kind of stuff to, to facilitate proper breeding, or maybe you want turkeys. Now those are the real chowhounds of the poultry show world. They can eat a lot of feed. Although they're recognized, you don't see as many turkeys in the shows as you used to. We, when I was a teenager, we used to have some pretty good large turkey classes and anymore, a lot of shows, if they have turkeys, they've got probably a half a dozen or less.
Carey: 7:18
I was going to say, this past year at the Ohio National, I saw turkeys in the sale barn. But there were very few that were actually in the show. That, that goes to what you said, there, there's not a lot of people showing them anymore.
Rip Stalvey: 7:36
And turkeys are not for everybody. Let's face it, they require special facilities. They require a lot of feed. They require a lot of high quality feed. And it's a knack to learning how to handle turkeys. If you've never done that before, because, turkeys are big enough. If they flog you with those wings, they can leave a mark on you.
Jennifer Bryant: 8:00
I don't know if but I have red bourbon turkeys And
Rip Stalvey: 8:03
my favorite variety
Jennifer Bryant: 8:05
in my NPIP tester She said she's always happy to come here because she says i'm the only one that knows how to handle them
Rip Stalvey: 8:14
So I agree with you. There's a knack to it.
Jennifer Bryant: 8:17
All of my scars on all of my on both of my arms are from turkeys
Rip Stalvey: 8:22
I can believe that I've judged birds. I got my judge's license back in 1994 I've got a lot of war wounds, but some of the most significant ones have been from turkeys and from geese.
Jennifer Bryant: 8:39
Yeah, I think if you're going to handle turkeys or guineas, that you need to wear denim sleeves.
Rip Stalvey: 8:46
And guineas are, a lot of folks don't realize that you can show guineas now. Didn't always, wasn't always that way. They were recognized back in the nineties. I think is when they were added to the standard. And when you're choosing a breed, consider your geographic location because some breeds do better in some locales than other breeds. Here in the South, we have a lot of hot, humid weather. And how does a bird cool itself? It's got two options. It can pant or it can use their comb and their waddles as a radiator. So if you're trying to take a bird that basically has these small low to the skull combs and very small, tiny waddles and breed them in the South, they have a hard time dealing with the heat and by the same token, birds that have these big single combs don't do well up in Vermont in those Northern areas because the cold will just. It'll freeze those the cold, freeze the combs, bad cases of frostbite. I
Carey: 10:02
said that I was thinking about John and his Chantecler. They Practically have no comb or waddle and one of those would, if you had one of those that survived in Florida or Alabama vigor on that bird would be huge. Yeah, it'd be the only way it would survive.
Rip Stalvey: 10:29
You're right. You're exactly right. I think it's important and the bottom line, choose a breed that appeals to you, something you like. There's so many different breeds and so many different varieties. You can find something out there that you really and you enjoy working with because if you enjoy it and you enjoy working with it, you're going to do much better with it. It's going to be a fun part of the hobby. It's not going to be a drudgery. I would also encourage folks to join the American Bantam Association or the American Poultry Association. And once you get a breed, join the breed club. That's where you're going to get most of your help for your birds when it comes to show it. It's because those are the people that work with those birds on a real regular basis. They're going to know more in many cases than the judges have to know. Because there's a knack to breeding each individual breed. They all require something a little bit different. And some of your best sources of information is breed clubs. And after you selected a breed, what variety of that breed do you want? And varieties can be separated usually by color or by comb types. For example, in old English games, I don't even, I can't keep up with how many different color varieties there are in old English games now. There's a bunch of them. And other breeds like leghorn, for example you have single comb and you have rose combs. So that's an example of those. You're going to have to decide whether you want to raise what I like to call self colored birds, they're solid colored, black or white. Or do you want a party colored bird? These are birds that have patterns on the feathers or they come in more than one color. It's like Rhode Island Reds. They're basically a dark red bodied bird with a beetle green tail. And somebody told me one time, that's an easy breed to raise. And I thought, you never tried to raise them, but I never got a great challenge to work with.
Jennifer Bryant: 12:41
So I work with buff orpingtons, and I, and then I was told buff is one of the most complex colors.
Carey: 12:48
Anybody can work with a white layer because it's white. It's pretty simple. It's, it either is or it isn't. The questions you have with that, are there feathers? At the right angle and is their body shape correct, with the birds, like the reds and the orbs, there's a lot more to it, is the black on the front feather or the backside of the feather? How much is it? How does it extend? It's pretty in depth.
Rip Stalvey: 13:18
Jennifer is exactly right about buff. The most important thing about a buff colored bird is that the color is even, from top of the bird to the bottom of the bird, one even shade. That's not easy to do. And then you throw in the problem that we have here in the South, is you put them out in the sunshine, and the color just goes to pot. You get uneven colors, you get lifeless, dead looking feathers, and you get some that are dark colored, and it's just It's a challenge. Blues are the same way. They have the same problem with sunshine. It dapples their color, so to speak. So all solid colored birds are not that easy.
Jennifer Bryant: 14:05
No.
Carey: 14:06
One of them. And two, the cochins, is it a green hue or a purple hue on their feathers? Because the purple is desirable and the green is. Yes. And that's just a hue. That's not even the color of the feathers. It's just the hue, the way it shines.
Rip Stalvey: 14:24
So in the showroom, we refer to that as feather sheen. Now the key to a good feather sheen is genetics, but nutrition can really enhance optimum nutrition. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about this coming up, but optimum nutrition can really make or break the sheen on a bird.
Jennifer Bryant: 14:56
So I do the black cochins also in the South, which is also a problem. And the people are really shocked a lot of times because my chicks hatch out probably 70 percent cream color. And that cream colored chick will have the best fetal green sheen when it's older.
Rip Stalvey: 15:19
You know why that is?
Jennifer Bryant: 15:21
I don't know why it is. I just know that it is.
Rip Stalvey: 15:25
It's carrying gold. Real dark black sheen, green sheen on the black, comes from birds that are carrying the gold and not silver.
Jennifer Bryant: 15:38
Nice. Good to know.
Rip Stalvey: 15:41
I think the most important question I get, how do I find good birds? Where can I go to get good birds? They're not anywhere and everywhere. Good birds are hard to come by. And
Carey: 15:58
one
Rip Stalvey: 16:03
thing that I had a real problem with was I was, I still am a very impatient person. And when I decided I wanted to get good birds, I wanted them right then they weren't available when I wanted them. So you got to wait, or if you don't wait, then you wind up settling for second best. And then that sets you back on your timeline of being able to breed and have good birds because you got to improve what you got before you can get them into the showroom. If you're going out there, take your time. Don't rush in it. I realized today. Our society is very much of a instant gratification society, but that's not going to work in show poultry. It's really not.
Jennifer Bryant: 16:53
Especially large fowl. You're talking about your three years.
Rip Stalvey: 16:57
And the length of time it takes for some of these breeds to mature and you're working with one of the coachings
Carey: 17:03
or
Rip Stalvey: 17:04
Orpingtons are not real speedy when it comes to maturing either.
Jennifer Bryant: 17:08
And I'm not a patient person.
Rip Stalvey: 17:10
I can identify with that, Jennifer. Do your research. Find out, once you decide what breed and what variety you want, do your research and find out who is raising and showing high quality birds in your breed and your variety that you want. And you can do that if you join the APA or the ABA. They put out a, Yearbook each year, it's free to members and it lists everybody in there who's been winning, where they've been winning, how many shows they've been winning, the whole nine yards. And they do have some awards called Master Exhibitor and Master Breeder Awards. Although I don't put a lot of faith in those, I'm going to be honest with you because, like Master Exhibitor, you don't have to breed those birds to show those birds. You can buy them. That doesn't necessarily mean There's some that do. Oh yeah, absolutely they do. That means they're a good buyer. Doesn't mean they're a good breeder. And to a little bit, some of the same extent within Master Breeder Awards. Take your time, do your research, and look for a foundational breeder. Briefly mentioned that earlier, but a foundational breeder is someone that everybody goes to get breeding stock. Somebody has invested in years of their life working with one breed. And typically one variety. That's where you're going to get your best birds from. You can find them, again, by referring to the yearbook, looking at the awards they've won, where they've what shows they've been in. It's a real science to research in your bird, but it, oh, it'll save you so much time.
Jennifer Bryant: 19:08
I'm going to say it took me about eight months to finally land on a breeder to get my foundation stock from
Rip Stalvey: 19:16
once
Jennifer Bryant: 19:16
I started looking.
Rip Stalvey: 19:18
And really, That's not bad at all.
Carey: 19:22
I was going to say part of this, this discussion takes me back to my quest for Reds.
Rip Stalvey: 19:30
I remember
Carey: 19:31
that. That's actually how Rip and I originally met because I asked Jennifer questions about these birds. She said, I know a guy that you need to talk to. You need to find this guy. If it didn't work out good, Rip, it's her fault. I blame her for that. He didn't tell me what I wanted to hear. He told me what I needed to hear. And I accepted that and I started immediately hatching every egg I could because I knew this trait had to be corrected, this trait had to be corrected, so on and so forth. And the only way to do it, out of a hundred birds, you hatch with 10. And so that's what I started doing. And then, I was able to hit the proverbial bird lottery. And wind up with an amazing line of Reds that I was entrusted to take care of it. But, that, that took some months of cultivating, you don't just go to a poultry show and see some birds that look really nice. Look for ones that have some marks on their cards and find that and say, Hey, you want to sell your birds? Cause they're going to look at you like crazy.
Rip Stalvey: 20:53
It's really all about building a relationship with that breeder. That's what it boils down to. I can't tell you how many times people that have taken the time to build a relationship for me before asking me to sell them some birds many times as they've invested that time.
Carey: 21:11
Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive all the new episodes right when they are released, and they are released on Thursday mornings. Feel free to email us at PoultryNerds@gmail.Com and let us know what you think of the show. If you're on Facebook, check us out at the Poultry Nerds and make sure to give us a like and a follow. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning and keep it egg citing. This is Carey from Poultry Nerds signing off. Feathers up, everyone.
21:46
Mhm.
