The Chantecler w/John Gunterman
The chantecler chicken history and breed attributes
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Carey: 0:01
Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant. We're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest, and highest quality birds possible.
Carey Blackmon: 0:14
Mhm.
Duncan: 0:23
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Jennifer Bryant: 0:41
Welcome to The Poultry Nerds Podcast We're here with John Gunterman in Vermont to talk about the I'm gonna say it wrong the Chantecler
Carey Blackmon: 0:51
perfect
Jennifer Bryant: 0:53
All right.
Carey Blackmon: 0:53
Nice.
Jennifer Bryant: 0:55
So tell us about yourself, John, and what you're doing,
John Gunterman: 0:59
wow. You got the name right. And I coach people by saying it's to sing clearly or to sing brightly. So if you think enchanté, chanté is to sing. And clear Claire Chantecler. But I'm up here way North in Vermont. I'm about 12 miles from the Canadian border. If you were to get on I 91 and head North as far as you can go, eventually you're going to hit a sign after a really long uphill. And burning a lot of gas. It says highest elevation on I 91 true story. And then from there, it's all downhill into Canada. You get off the very next exit and that's where we are, just before the border. So that, that's pretty significant to why I chose the Chanticleer. Breeds were bred to do a certain thing in a certain place originally. And, having, a breed that has no comb and no waddle to withstand the whipping, whatever sustained easily 20 mile an hour wind, Negative 38 Fahrenheit. There's nothing to get frostbitten.
Jennifer Bryant: 2:12
So let's talk about the origin.
John Gunterman: 2:14
Right over there, about 20 miles away, Oka Abbey up in Quebec, designed the bird. For this environment, it's pretty rough up in Quebec in the Canadian Maritimes. They have very strong winds and bitter, cold winters. So they needed a bird that could withstand, the temperature challenges and the wind. So therefore we have no combs and waddles, that was bred very specific. But they were also at one time, they were considered like the bird of Canada. They were advertised as, the homesteading bird, everybody needs a Chanticleer. up until the 1950s, the poultry of tomorrow contests and the advent of the Cornish cross, they're pretty much what fed Canada.
Jennifer Bryant: 3:03
So they're dual purpose.
John Gunterman: 3:05
For sure.
Jennifer Bryant: 3:06
Now, if I understand correctly, they're on the conservancy's, endangered list, right?
John Gunterman: 3:14
They seem to bounce back and forth because the number of committed breeders and the number of, sustainable flocks that are around the country is a genuine concern. But, I'm not up on where they are this year in the cycle.
Jennifer Bryant: 3:33
So do they have a pea cone?
John Gunterman: 3:36
Yes. Tiny little, it's almost nothing. This isn't a visual show, so it's hard to show, but just picture. No comb and no waddle. It's a raised bump. So this becomes a liability now when we're entering into the August dearth and we're hot, we're humid, we're sticky. My birds are miserable. They do not like this at all because that we've taken away their natural perspiration and evaporative cooling mechanism. So if people from Southern climates are like, Hey, I'm really interested in your Chanticleer and okay, what zone are you in? What's your humidity levels in the summertime? I look at something from the horticulture industry of a VPD, your vapor pressure deficit, cause that roughly equates to any organisms ability to cool itself, where's the humidity in relation to the temperature that provides evaporative cooling. And these birds just don't have that ability. They just are not going to survive well in anything south of, say, Zone 5.
Jennifer Bryant: 4:44
So since we are geared more towards the newbie chicken person, the comb and the waddles is how a chicken cools itself. So if you live in the south, you're going to want one with a nice big single comb would be great, large waddles. And as you go north, you're going to want these bigger birds, Brahma's would do well up there. The Cochins seem to do well up there, but when I go to a show, the Cochins from up north will have a smaller wattle and comb and they're always amazed at how big they are on my birds because they, they're huge. They look like the same as an Orpington comb wattle.
John Gunterman: 5:34
That should adjust itself pretty quick. The comb is something that is definitely influenced, by epigenetic development. Environment drives the comb in it. So if you can, keep them alive for a couple of generations, they're naturally going to at least adapt in the comb. I have not seen the wattles respond, but I'm currently doing a project right now, to do just that.
Jennifer Bryant: 5:59
So how big do these birds get?
John Gunterman: 6:03
I like to take them at about seven pounds live weight. So it provides a good four and a half to five pounds of meat. When they're harvested, as roosters, I take them out to 20 weeks, on birds. I get rid of half of my birds at three weeks. I weigh all my hatchlings daily. And at the end of three weeks, I have a very good idea of who my potential breeders are for next year, who are going to be really good eggers and really good producers and who are just going to be paired with noodles. And I try to. Get things off of my feed bill that aren't going to be what I want to keep.
Jennifer Bryant: 6:43
What do you do with the three week olds?
John Gunterman: 6:47
So the ones that will provide good, homestead, backyard flocks, good layers. I try to seed the local economy with good layers. And if they're interested, I will try to pair them up with A rooster, ideally, people looking for, Hey, I'm looking to start a backyard flock. You give me what I've paid to feed these up to now. I'm going to set you up with a couple of really good breeding hens and the rooster that I would pair them with. if people are just looking for eggs, they may get different hens, but I'm always looking to. Proliferate the genetics, get people interested in the breed and have little genetic safe deposit boxes around the neighborhood too. Cause I have huge predator issues here. And just keeping my birds alive long enough to breed them is a challenge sometimes.
Jennifer Bryant: 7:35
All right.
John Gunterman: 7:37
There is a national, breed organization. There's a, and we communicate primarily on Facebook. It seems to be like the older generation's preferred method of communication, but there's the Chanticleer Fanciers International or CFI, and there's a public Facebook group, and there's also a private Facebook group that you have to be a member of the CFI, and I'm a lifetime member. It's not a long investment and it gets you, access to other people that are really committed to improving the breed and just not being backyard blender breeders and just, capitalizing on the name and the,
Jennifer Bryant: 8:17
cause
John Gunterman: 8:17
that does happen.
Carey Blackmon: 8:19
Yeah, it really does. A lot of times people just, I don't know, like I see online a lot where people just have 20, 30, 40 different kinds of birds and they have a menu, here's a menu of things that we have buy from us because we're breeders. And I'm like, no, you're a local hatchery because, I know a lot about a couple of breeds, but that's about it. But what I do know is there's no way you can provide the amount of time, love and effort that it takes to actually work with, make selection for breed standard and do the birds right, in my opinion, by having, even if it's three or four.
John Gunterman: 9:13
I had gotten down to one breed on the ground. For a while I was doing two breeds before I went completely into Chanticleer, I was also running the Buckeyes, and I was introduced to both when I was finishing my degrees at a local college here. the Buckeyes and the Chante cla I found quite by accident, made a beautiful sex link, which had a nice heterosis or hybrid vigor bump. Neither are slouches in their own rights, but by putting a autosomal red. rooster on top of a base white hen. We're going to get chicks to make it really simple. They're going to hatch and they're going to have a down color. So they're going to be identifiable as either male or female when they pop out of the egg
Jennifer Bryant: 9:55
So this is a Chanticleer rooster over a Buckeye hen.
John Gunterman: 9:59
It's the Buckeye rooster With a Chanticleer hen will give you a great sex linked chick.
Jennifer Bryant: 10:07
So what will the chicks look like?
John Gunterman: 10:09
They're going to be basically reddish brown coming out and then or White. Okay. And the reddish brown ones are going to be your hens and the white ones are going to be your roosters. It flips. Yep. It's one of those genetic weirdnesses, which is why I have this told. We've shared this crazy tattoo that I have on my forearm to remind me of. We do not know the voodoo that we do as much as we think we do.
Jennifer Bryant: 10:39
So for sex links hatches, they don't work both ways for people who don't know. You have to do it a certain way because. The males carry two of the sex linked chromosomes, and the hens only carry one. So they only work one way. So a Buckeye rooster over a Chanticleer hen will work, but the other way around will not.
John Gunterman: 11:05
No.
Jennifer Bryant: 11:06
No.
John Gunterman: 11:06
I've never taken this past that F1 generation. I believe that We would be doing a disservice by doing that. I use this primarily as a means to fund keeping the two distinct lines alive. It takes a lot of dedication and funding to do that. And that's why I ended up just going down to one breed because I didn't feel I was doing it justice by doing two lines. Just the level of intimacy. I think that you need handling your birds. At least on a weekly basis, feeling their fleshing development, feeling their carriage development. What is their heart girth and chest depth? What's the pin bone spacing? Like you get to know what your birds should feel like and what you want the next generation to feel like. And you just can't do that with too many birds on the ground.
Jennifer Bryant: 11:59
What else can you tell us about the Chanticleer?
John Gunterman: 12:02
One thing that they're really great at is winter laying capacity. There, there is a misnomer going around that they'll just chug straight through the winter. And that's not entirely true. They will take a pause and take a month or three off. if you're patient, round about the. Second or third week of January, they're just going to start laying again when the lights coming back on once we pass the equinox, They're one of the first breeds to turn back on laying naturally, and they were bred to do that because they were bred above the 45th parallel. Where the day length is shorter naturally. So in the springtime, Chanticleers would be laying, buckeyes are still hunkered down and they don't even want to get out of the coop. I found out quite by accident, they will survive completely on their own. I had a predator attack in late January and lost a bunch of birds and thought I had lost a bunch more, but back in April, I heard the egg song was I was taking my mid afternoon nap. And I'm like, That's strange. I don't have any hens right now that should be laying. And I went out to the coop and one of the hens that I thought had died had just Gone and found her way back, three and a half months later. And we hit temperatures as low as negative 38 Fahrenheit that winter. She survived out on her own and made her way back. And yes, I collected every egg she laid.
Carey Blackmon: 13:27
I have a question for you. How cold did you say it got? Negative 38 Fahrenheit. And what kind of supplemental heat do you use in your barn? Never. Exactly. Okay. So the reason I asked that is we, there's a lot of people that feel like, I've got to keep my birds 60 degrees or whatever, and you don't heat your birds. And I have a friend of mine that actually in the winter time, she keeps quail. And she will post pictures of her quail cage outside covered in snow, like a foot and a half, two feet deep. And the birds get absolutely no heat. They're fine. They're wild animals. They're designed to keep outside. To me, my opinion, the most important thing is to keep them dry. And to keep the wind off of them. And as long as you can do that's what they're bred for. That's why they have all the feathers. That's why birds temperature, body temperature is higher than ours.
John Gunterman: 14:32
I do modify my feed a little bit in response to some of Jeff's, inputs. Truth be told, I've been running, my own feed formulation with Jeff's input now for about three years and my birds are doing great. I source all my local grains, preferably from local farmers, and I can store them and crack them when needed and do my own mix. And that's really helped me save a lot of money along the way and keep my food fresh and at its peak nutritive value to my birds, I won't mix up more than what I can use in about two weeks.
Jennifer Bryant: 15:08
You're so rural that you can't just hop in the jeep and run to the tractor supply.
John Gunterman: 15:14
No, the tractor supply is 45 minutes in one direction and 55 in another direction. We've had some massive flooding events again. But I do have to get up to E. M. Brown and Sons and pick up, three 50 pound bags of soy meal so I can mix up more feed. Luckily, we are right on the Canadian border and there's a pool and mill right on the border, so they there's a logistics value there because we share a lot of the Canadian maritime for agricultural products
Jennifer Bryant: 15:48
to the Chanticleers need, a different mix, a different protein than say, you're just an average bird,
John Gunterman: 15:56
they'll survive. Okay. I don't want to say a 16 percent layer because that's barely keeping them alive. I would never go below an 18%. So if I were to offer one of my customers feed advice, and they just don't want to get into mixing their own feed, get an 18 percent finisher and augment that with about 4 percent aragonite or oyster shell, or a combination of both and grit mixed right into the feed, 3 percent of grit as well, right into the bagged feed and sprinkle it with some fur trail. Breeder supplement or, NutriBalancer, always breeder supplement two to three weeks before you're ready to start breeding and you'll be okay. You don't have to get the fancy food, but grit is super, super important. You're not extracting all the nutrients that you're putting into your bird. It's just coming out as waste and higher ammonia and causing more work on the backend because of that waste.
Jennifer Bryant: 17:02
So grit works, in the gizzard, like our teeth work in our mouths and they grind the food. Grit, I buy granite grit, oyster shell will work, but it's just going to wear down really quickly.
John Gunterman: 17:17
it could give your birds too much calcium because it does wear down so quickly.
Jennifer Bryant: 17:22
So and grit's not expensive, It pays for
John Gunterman: 17:25
itself.
Jennifer Bryant: 17:26
Yeah,
John Gunterman: 17:26
actually.
Jennifer Bryant: 17:27
So an interesting thing. I keep a lot of my birds up. My breeders are up in coops. But then I have a, essentially air quote, free range flock. And if I put grit out, my free range flock will gobble it up much quicker than my pin to birds, which I always find interesting because they have access to the gravel driveway and stuff.
John Gunterman: 17:53
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about free ranging your birds. Cause I, truth be told, I have your quail, in the brooder right now. Love quail. The feed conversion ratio is amazing. So my degree is in sustainable food systems and regenerative agriculture. So I'm looking at ways that we're going to feed the world population. And if we could just get quail to. nest and to hatch their eggs again, they would be the ideal sustainable poultry ish product and protein, but they've just lost that ability.
Jennifer Bryant: 18:29
we're talking about Coturnix, not Bobwhite. So Bobwhites are going to have that brooding, instinct, Coturnix are not native here. They were brought over, what, in the 60s, I think, and several attempts to make them, wild, have been attempted and they've all just petered out. So they don't occur naturally, Coturnix don't. So it makes me wonder if in their native homeland, I wonder how broody they get. That would be an interesting thing to find out.
John Gunterman: 19:08
I know the Japanese have bred them in captivity for a long time. I'm always hoping to find a hen that appears to want to sit and encourage that, but it hasn't happened yet. And I usually don't keep my genetics around long enough because winter is pretty brutal. And, last year I only kept my quail long enough till my watering system froze up in my hatching time cages. But I have trained my quail to, go off the nipple drinker and I've got a, Premier one heated nipple drinker that I use in the winter time. And I have checked that out and it does not freeze up down to negative 20. And if one bird saw it and came over and now they all know luckily the Chanticleer will eat snow in the winter. It's fun to watch. They open up their mouth and walk around and bulldoze snow into their beak. So I don't have to water my birds. in the winter.
Jennifer Bryant: 20:06
How interesting is that? Mine try to go swimming all the time, but they despise heat. So when I see these posts in the wintertime, it's snowing, do I let my birds out of the coop? The answer is yes.
John Gunterman: 20:20
Oh, yes. I've got a video up on my, YouTube channel of, I've got a particular rooster who would literally put himself in the path of the discharge chute of my snowblower because he liked getting, we call it a whitewash or a snow bath. He liked it. And it was the strangest thing crazy Chanticleers, I just
Jennifer Bryant: 20:48
You were going to ask me about the Predators, so we have Here we have hawks and foxes, raccoons. We have plenty of skunks, but I've never seen a skunk attack a bird. I think they're just more after the eggs per se.
John Gunterman: 21:07
We have skunks will reach in to pens and grab legs and snatch them towards the wire. Then they'll eat out. The insides, so we'll come out in the morning and it'll just be like a carcass with no insides pulled up against the wire, and that's pretty indicative of a skunk attack or a raccoon attack.
Jennifer Bryant: 21:26
Do you have rat problems up there?
John Gunterman: 21:29
No, the only real, what I would consider vermin are the red squirrels because they jump right through even a two inch deer that I zip tie to the inside face of my electric fence. Fence. and they'll come in and eat out of the feeders. So I try to put out just enough feed, so that, the birds go to bed with a full, and there's no food outside overnight.
Jennifer Bryant: 21:54
But
John Gunterman: 21:54
That's a continuing challenge.
Jennifer Bryant: 21:58
So the reason why I can free range, and I get actually asked that a lot. So we have 18 acres, and I have three Pyrenees, and they have access. To I'd say, 95 percent of the property and they can't get where the pigs are at the moment. So the rest of the property that can get to, and I have trained them that if it's just flying over. they need to chase it. I call it chasing the sky because they will actually run underneath any bird and bark at it to the point where the geese that nest behind us, there's a lake behind us 2, 000 geese on it. They will actually split and fly around the property now.
Carey Blackmon: 22:48
John, it's hilarious. I like these dogs. It's snowing up there, which I know it don't snow a whole lot in Tennessee, but I have seen pictures of snow on the ground, snow on the dog house and the dog's just laying out front and their heads are constantly on a swivel. And like she said, anytime anything flies overhead, they just. Lock on to it until it's gone.
Jennifer Bryant: 23:16
Yeah, I hope one day, because they run full speed looking straight up, and one day and I've been saying this for years they're going to run into a tree because they're running, they you would be shocked if you've never been around a Pyrenees. First of all, they're massive. But they're also goofy. They are. And lumbering. They can move wicked fast. Oh yeah. Bear's probably about 140 pounds. Kimber's coming in at about 110. Lady is mixed with Australian Shepherd. So that gives her speed. And she comes in right about 90 pounds. So I actually don't even lock up my birds anymore. I'm to that point now. They are access to the outside 24 seven.
John Gunterman: 24:06
I run layers of, electric poultry fence. The outer perimeter is under a seven jewel, wide impedance charger. And then I've got individual pens inside of that I separate my roosters and hens from my grow out as soon as they're identifiable. Any potential breeders, I will keep with the hens up at the top of the hill in the hen house with the elder rooster. my spare roosters, I try to keep two elder roosters and then the ones coming up and they also help set the tone for the younglings as they're growing, And if they get a little too aggressive, the elder rooster will go over and break them up
Jennifer Bryant: 24:48
I had a couple turkeys doing that last night and I was just dying laughing because they do it's like they whine or hiss like a cat at each other I should have got it on camera, but sometimes you just want to enjoy your birds without thinking about getting camera out, you know
Carey Blackmon: 25:03
So I was watching mine the other day and three, I had three or four of my breasts there in their coop together and two of them started chest bumping and one of them, I call him my trainer and he was, he just got up on his perch like this and started looking around.
Carey: 25:34
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. Mhm.
