How to Prepare Your Chickens for Breeding Season

SPEAKER_02 0:23

I really do like that commercial or that intro.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Rip did a great job on it.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Man, that's really nice. He's really and for those people that are in audio only mode. Man, you gotta get on YouTube and see that. He did a really good job with it. So speaking of Rip, Rip's been writing articles here lately. You seen those? Yeah. Yeah. That's exciting. Yeah. I like it when he's able to do stuff like that. Rip writes, Rip is like a wealth of knowledge, and he's one of those people that likes to share it. You know, there's a lot of folks out there that they don't want to tell their secrets. They're like, oh no, you might figure out how I got it. But that I gotta say, he's probably one of my biggest motivations behind doing stuff like this. Is I mean, I like to teach and share knowledge, and I like to learn knowledge, learn a lot from him. So, Jeff, how's your week been?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

I you know, I don't know if it's the moon phase, if it's a season change, what it is. This week has been insanely busy. I I don't understand where it's coming from, but you know what? I guess I should be thankful for it, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

You know, that's what they say, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Otherwise, I'd be complaining about being bored, but I that hasn't happened in a long time. So Jeff, I've been knowing you what, three years now?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

I think three years, something like that, and never I've heard you complain about a decent amount of stuff. I've never in my life heard you complain about being bored.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, well, I'm one of those uh stupid people that if I have free time on my hands, I find something new to do, right? I can't just do nothing. And I gotta, I got, you know, I gotta quit doing that.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

So well, I mean, I've talked to my wife about it because my schedule is pretty tight. But she she told me she said, you know something, that's that's who you are. That's part of you is staying busy and helping people. And she said, to be honest, if you weren't busy or helping somebody or both, would you be you? Like, I don't know, but wouldn't mind a down day every now and then.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Uh uh every now and then I'll take a weekend or a day on the weekend and just sit and try and do nothing like binge watch, you know, Banda Brothers or something like that, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Just that's a good one. So she uh she actually asked me yester yesterday or day before. She said, What do you what do you got going on Saturday? And I just looked at her and she said, seriously, what do you got going on? I said, I hope and pray nothing. We'll see how it works out, but that's what I'm hoping for. I had a piglet or pig sow the other day. I was out there and I was like, that heifer, she don't quite look like her sisters. No, she ain't done got pregnant. I went and caught her. I've never felt a pregnant pig before, but I have felt a pregnant woman's belly before. Like, you know, when they're in that life last trimester and the baby looks more like an alien moving around, and surprisingly enough, I I did have a pregnant Sal. And then I was like, Well, I wonder how far along she is. A couple hours ago, I got a picture from my daughter. She said, Pops, there's six. So I have six baby pigs at home.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Are you sure she's done?

SPEAKER_02 5:04

She's moving around, and my daughter, she she helps feed, and she said she would not let me anywhere close to them. Like I said, well, I'm glad that at least her mothering instinct is that far developed. And but you know, the she was moving around, so I don't know. Do they get up and walk around and then pop another one out?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Sometimes they don't know, like they'll they'll there'll be a pause in the labor, and you can have a surprise, you know, an hour or two or even longer.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Um you don't know, but so this is first time for her, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Actually, for a kunic coon and being a first time six is probably the right number. That's a pretty good number for a kunic coon on a first litter.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

So I mean, this is this this one. I mean, she's two feet tall, 18 inches wide, decent size, not like you know, I've got my one of my boars is probably 300, 325 pounds. He's ready for the he's about ready for the breakfast table.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yep, that's about all you're gonna do with him. If he if you've used him for breeding and he's been around Sous and Gilts for a while, he's gonna be, you know, you make him into a good spicy sausage that has a fair amount of sage and garlic in it. So just saying, look, we're here to talk about chickens, we're in here to talk about your pigs. I know you're excited. I know you're excited.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

You just started talking about sausage, and you know, you're probably fixing to say something about bacon. And yeah, I mean, I was gonna have to talk to Sue and Laura and see if we could just have a breakfast show.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

There we go. Yeah, I don't know. Tonight I got a feeling there's gonna be enough fat on that old boar that you can cook down a lot of lard.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

I was gonna say, Sue Sue just said that, but we'll find out because I am gonna keep it all. Tonight, we're here to talk about getting ready for breeding season. And when I first mentioned it to Jeff, he had that same reaction. He kind of laughed, and I was like, I said, Well, Jeff, let's let's really look at this because the first time I thought I was ready for breeding season, I wasn't. Far from it. And I was behind the eight ball when I was getting started, so that's why I'm like, hey, you know what? Let's let's have a good conversation about breeding season, what it should look like, and all that. So our new listeners, watchers, can figure out that you know, like me, my my first go-around when I man, hey, that first time I felt like I had it under control. I was popping out chicks left and right, everything was going good, we're great. And then I started hanging out with guys that knew a lot more about how it really should work, like you and Rip and Jennifer, you know, and Mandy and Karen. I've learned a lot last several years, you know. I thought my granddaddy taught me a lot. So the next season, you know, I got all my ducks in a row. So hopefully we can help somebody bypass that.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Look, it doesn't matter what stage you are in your poultry journey, right? There is always something new to learn. It that is if your mind is open, right? And things can still enter in. There's always something new to learn, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:11

And it's well, I have always said if you're not a student of your craft, you're gonna fail sooner or later, bad. You gotta be a student of your craft, or it's not gonna work out. No argument. Uh no argument at all. You know, because for me, I thought breeding season, all right. I'm I'm gonna put like three or four hens with a rooster, they all look good. Boom, I'm set. And another one, another area, I had a really good rooster, and I had a layer flock of Isa Browns, and you know, they're like the Heinz 57 of the chicken world that's actually productive, and they they prolific layers, so I was like, you know, I I'd got me a tabletop incubator, okay, hatched a couple out. The the I don't know what kind of drug you would call that, if like it's a hatching drug or you know, chicken something, I don't know what you would call it, but it got me, and I was hooked. So I bought a cabinet incubator, I went straight from like a nurtureite 360 to a hatching time CT 180, no in-between, and I was hatching out chicks left and right, and then I found out that I was a hatcher, I wasn't a breeder, and you know, I really started thinking about stuff, and so in your mind, and we kind of talked about this a little bit earlier, but for somebody that's wanting to set up a breeding program and actually breed birds in their backyard, whether they want to hatch out 10 or a thousand, what is the most important place they should start?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Man, that that's a really tough question, you know, because you're asking a person who does nutrition every day, and but it it actually isn't a nutrition thing, right? It is evaluating your birds and finding the hen and rooster with the least amount of defects, and starting there, and hopefully you've got a couple hens to choose from to go with that rooster, two, three, something like that. But I mean, if you're starting with what's already in your backyard, I agree with Sue. You hunt down the best, you know, the best birds you can afford. But starting like you did, right, for the brand new breeder, you know, it's it's looking at you know, body type, body depth, you know. What you're you know, you're just looking for what you want, you know, down the road in what you're doing, right? So it's it's gonna be selecting the best overall birds with the least amount of defects or problems or body function issues or whatever, right? And that's where you start.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

So yeah, when when the first time I asked Rip that question, he said, Well, that depends. Where do you want to be in five years? And I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, this guy's asking me where do I want to be in five years? I don't know where to be right now. But he told me it was a very good lesson because he said that I needed to think about what I wanted for the future of my flock to know what I'm starting with and figure out how I need to get there. And I was like, that's deep, you know. I but I needed a game plan, I needed to figure out where I wanted to be, so I did that, and you know, we talked, and so then he helped me, you know, put things in order, but you know, having that right when she figured out a bird, for me, I I started with and I will always love a Rhode Island Red. It reminds me of my grandfather. Some of our greatest, greatest memories I have with him is messing with those and collecting eggs and stuff like that when I was knee high. So that was the direction I went, and he he's helped me a lot. From you know, this rooster has this that's not right, but the hens, theirs is perfect, so the chicks will inherit that trait from the hen. So I was able to learn how to put that together, and now Sue's bragging, she's got some dandy pullets this year, and that's that's good because the birds that I hatched out last year that I kept, I think I got three pullets and about 20 roosters. I'm hoping this year what I hatch out is heavy on the hen side, but you know, we'll figure that out in time. But I had to learn what I wanted, where I wanted to be, and then I had to learn what that bird should be, and I had this idea in my mind, but as the more research and and stuff I did, and of course I looked at a standard of perfection, and like that's where I learned what to look for. And then when when he and I talked, he says, Well, the hard part's done, and I'm like, huh?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

It gets you 75% of the way, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

It's where you go from there.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

So once you have those birds, where where do you go? When do you when do you think about setting up what you're setting up to be able to hatch, say, January or February?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Well, I mean, again, Carrie, it's what is your goal, right? So, you know, if you take if you take the road like a breeder, like Kenny Triano, right? So his goal is purposely going for the perfect bird, right? And and repeatability. So when he breeds, you know, uh a rooster to hen within a family, he he has predictability on what those chicks, what that offspring's gonna look like, right? So if you keep honing in, right, and a lot of this is gonna be done through line breeding, line breeding and inbreeding, right, is you know, eventually you're gonna continue to work out, you know, these hidden, you know, genes that you didn't even know you had. Right. And a lot of people get scared, right? But that's you know, that's further down the road. But I mean, you know, a serious hardcore breeder, you know, like a kenny, even like a rip, right? So that inbreeding and line breeding is gonna clean up that family as fast as anything, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Mm-hmm. That is that's what I've learned as well. Doing, you know, a lot of people are scared of line breeding, but everything I've learned, all of my research, and from what I've seen in the brood pin, that's the best way to weed out what's sneaking in.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Right. And depending on where you're starting from, you could be three to five generations to weed out the majority of those faults in a bird. Yeah. Right. So it shouldn't take you longer than that, but most people quit after two, right? Because they see some really, you know, really strange stuff popping out of these birds, right? And they're like, oh man, I've got I've got messed up. I've got line breeding, what do you call it, depression? I got the yeah, line depression.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

All right, I gotta bring in fresh blood.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Yeah, that that is absolutely the worst thing you can ever do. Right. I mean, completely new and fresh blood from outside. There you go. See, you know, Sue's saying it too. You just don't you don't do it, you don't give up just because you you you hit that, you know. So, you know, true line breeding or inbreeding depression shows up first. The true actual depression of line breeding or inbreeding is failure to reproduce. So when you if you ever could actually get your poultry to a point, you know, at where you know the hen won't become fertile or the rooster won't become fertile or whatever, right? Or you get a bunch of even if they were fertile, you have a bunch of embryonic death that you can't explain otherwise. But it actually goes back to total fertility, the the inability to breed. So when line breeding goes too far, right, or inbreeding goes too far, that's the true inbreeding depression that I've seen, right, in in all other species, you know, because this practice is done in goats and sheep and cattle and pigs, and you name it, right? It if they use it everywhere. If it's on the farm, that's how they do it, right? And you know, so true, you know, true inbreeding depression is is failure to reproduce. Okay. And that would be the only time I would consider, you know, getting something in your same line, but you know, maybe a generation or two out or you know, from another. And that's what Rip, that's what Rip was telling people the other day. You know, if you ever think you're gonna need another rooster or something, you go to somebody else who has the same line as you and select a bird from there. But I have never seen, I've never actually seen poultry bred to the point where they fail to reproduce because of genetics. I've seen it where they don't reproduce because of poor quality feed, because of poor living conditions, because of poor management, but actually where it was just genetic a genetic failure, I have not seen that yet.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

I mean, to me, I I think that 99% of it all boils down to management. Even even when you hit that part, this genetic, the manager hasn't managed the breeding program correctly, which is why you hit that, in my opinion. I think a lot of it's on us.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

A lot of the great breeding people, you know, the families of humans that have been bred, you know, multiple generations, they've never brought outside blood in, right? So it they're constantly, you know, in some fashion, either line breeding or inbreeding. So in some, you know, some families have had them for 50 or 60 years. Okay, so you know, one of the things I I learned when I was working with Kenny Triano is the genetic, the genetic, the number of chromosomes and the way the potential of you know breeding repeatedly, because they're a reptile. They're not a mammal. Their gene code is closer to a reptile. It's like thousands of combinations before you're gonna hit a wall, right? So that's that's hatching a lot of chicks. That's hatching a lot of chicks.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

So we've got our birds picked out. We we know what we're looking for. We're doing that. We wanna hat we want to start hatching like in the south, hatching in I'm a fan of hatching in the cooler months because it's easy to keep a chick warm and so they don't have a problem with that. I in the south I've actually had birds get too hot as one two-week old chicks and die. So I would rather hatch out in a cooler month to do that. But you you would like I've started now prepping my birds for hatching out, you know, being able to set and hatch out in December or set in December and start hatching in January with their their lighting management.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Well, you should have everybody set at right around 11 or 12 hours, right? And don't let it go below that. So you're holding your holding light twelve. All right, your holding light for pullets or hands is 11 hours. 11 or 12. Okay, so as long as you don't let it go below that and you keep that pretty much stable. You don't have as far to go with light stimulation when you're thinking you want to breed. Right. So like you're gonna start you're gonna start stimulating and breeding for December. So actually, you're gonna start moving your lights up in November. Because you're gonna have to get above, you're gonna have to get above 14 hours to get them stimulated. And and the older birds, like if you've got fourth, you know, fourth cycle hens, fifth cycle hens, you know, five, six, seven-year-olds, they may take more light stimulation. They will take more light stimulation to get them moving than a pullet does, right? Because she's she's ready, right? She's she's ready. The pullet's ready to pop. She's not gonna take a whole lot of encouragement.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

I mean, some of them are laying egg with with eight hours of sunlight, right? So the pullets are you know, the few that I do have from last year, they're they're already laying. But what I've done is so in some of my research on lighting, because I've done a lot, and you and I have had a lot of discussions about it, that 2700K spectrum is is what like hybrid genetics and people that spend multi-millions of dollars doing research say is the best. So I found those, and then I also found it to where they're not bright because a lot of people think when they stimulate a bird with light, you know, we're we're lighting up Yankee.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

But actually, when you can overdo it, yeah, you study it and you read it, that actually stresses the birds out, and they won't do anything. Yep. And you gotta come up gradually, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:57

So I've checked that, and it does like they won't do nothing. Yeah, you know, I I've used like 6,500 K those super bright lights, and had the day at 14 hours, nothing make one change, swap that out for 2700K. They call them cool white, it's more like an overcast day kind of swap it out with that within a week. I'm getting eggs every day.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

So you did that lighting study thing and posted it about a year ago. It's probably time to repost that again so people understand.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

So all right, I can share that.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

You only need between what is it, 10 and 20 lux, not to go over 40 lux. Yeah, yeah, which is 20 foot candles. And you know, we've talked about it. You can get the app for free on your phone, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:01

It's yeah, there's a couple of them, but the one that's L U X.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

That's the one I use, right? L-U-X, and it's free. You just got to watch what you agree to, right? So there's one that they'll charge you monthly, and there's another one that's at the free one. The base model is free. Um so Sue wants to know, so she needs a link where to find those light bulbs. But so you need to get all that posted in the group, you know.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Yeah, I'll get I'll get that shared out.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

But yeah, so get that app, right? And and you'd be amazed at what you think is you know the appropriate light versus what they've studied to know is the appropriate amount of light, and it's really not much. Okay, it's it's just a little bit more than a good night light you plug in the wall. So it's like, you know, I tell people enough light that you can walk through there without stumbling over a chicken, right? That's it don't take much.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

I got a buddy of mine that has commercial houses up in North Alabama, and we were having this conversation last year, and he said, Look, man, if I go, if I had to walk in them houses after dark or early before the sun comes up, I've got a green handlamp that I put on. Because the the light coming in from this, like the sun coming in from the side along with the lights, you can not trip over a chicken, which I mean, you know, they're packed in pretty tight in there. But he said, if the sun is nothing out or the moon's not out a lot, I gotta wear a headlamp.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

So now that's a commercial barn, yeah. And so they're trying to manage aggression, cannibalism, things like that.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

But you know, but that that's why they don't have really bright lights, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:06

If you get your lights above a certain level, you actually stimulate aggression, and you can drive them crazy just with too much light, and so yeah, and they'll drive you crazy as a result.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Yep. But like what I do is like you talked about, I plan way ahead. So instead of backing it up 30 minutes every week, I do it every two weeks to where I get them to 14 hours. So I like to wake them up with artificial light, you know, at the at the peak of season, you know, December, January, my lights are on at 3 30 in the morning outside.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yep. You know, and that's just barely 14 hours.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Right. But here's the thing. I what I do is about every week I will make a conscious effort to pay attention what time the sun goes down. Because I want to make sure my clock timer for my lights goes off hour and a half, two hours before the sun goes down. Because and I and I do two hours, which kind of a bit excessive, I know, but in the south, which I'm sure it's everywhere else, the sun don't always set at six o'clock. You know, it may go down a little early, may go down a little late, the weather could be off, whatever. But I want that roosting, nighttime, bedtime, whatever you want to call it, I want all that to happen naturally.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

That's the best results I've ever seen. So, you know, when I maintain the flock in the backyard and the chicken, no matter what, whether I put lights in the in the building or not, right? At sunset, they were all on the roost. So in a chicken's mind, sunset is the end of the day. I had very poor success trying to stimulate with any light in the evening, okay, after the sunset. So they just ignored the lights and went to bed. That's that was my chickens, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:26

So I mean I could see that because they know, like you said, they know. They do know we want to think they're stupid, but they're really not.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

They just act that way sometimes, but yeah, they're really not.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Yeah. So when you do that, you've got your light, you know, you know, you you're gonna have your best results with 14 hours. It's best to wake them up early in the morning so they can roost naturally at night.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Well, now wait, hold on, because let's roll this back a little bit. Because if I remember I was talking about if you got like a five, six, seven-year-old hen or you got a rooster in the same boat, right? Five, six, seven-year-old rooster that you're still trying to get more chicks out of. You may have to take them as high as 16 or even 17 hours to get them fully stimulated. You can stimulate first-year pull it and a and a second-year hand with 14 hours, working up to 14, but the older they get, the more stimulation they require, right? So just keep that in mind, right? They're not all gonna be 14-hour birds, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:45

But that's also in my mind, and I may be wrong if I am, tell me, but my mindset: if I stop at two hours before, then the ones that only need the 14 hours of light are getting a solid 14 hours. But if they need more, they're gonna get it naturally, but I'm not overdoing it by giving them light. Is that line of thinking right?

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Or I mean again, sunset, sunset. So when I ran my lights, you know, for for my flop, is my lights would go off when I knew for sure I had a full sun was up, right? So my light was coming on at 3:30, 4 o'clock in the morning going off at 8 a.m. Right. I knew the sun was up regardless of time of year, 8 a.m. Right, and then the rest of the day was natural light. So I wasn't burning the extra electric, right? And so again, you know, I had four hours of light stimulation in the morning only.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

So for me, I never had I never had really old birds, right? So I never had there was only a few that turned into pets that stayed to like their fifth, sixth year, right? And and that was before I learned about you know feed limitation, overweight, right, dying of fatty liver, you know, that sort of thing, right? So yeah, that was way back in my in my poultry nutrition, you know, journey. And so learned a lot since then.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Like for me, doing that in November and December, there's a lot of days where you don't really even see sun. So again, in my mindset, I'm using that low light, this dim, it's LED now, so it's not trust me, with with 10 people living in your house, the lights is the least thing you're worried about running your light bill up. My thought was on those days where the sun didn't really do a whole lot, it still provided some kind of regularity to the day, which created a less stressful environment for the birds.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Well, okay, so even on your cloudy overcast, like gray days, yeah, your your foot candles or your luxe, however you want to measure it, doesn't matter, you know, you end up at the same place, but they there's still enough light, right? So they're still getting stimulation, you know. Back in those days, you were still thinking, you know, like everybody else, how how bright does that light need to be? But you can have a fully overcast day, right? And there's still enough light coming through those clouds. I mean, unless you're in the middle of a hurricane or something, and it gets pretty black or or tornado, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Well, and for me, there is a uh pretty solid canopy of trees over a large part of my yard while my birds are that's not really a big problem, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:26

I'd be curious, you know, go out there with your Lux Meter and measure it sometime when you think they might need more, but you'd be surprised. I think you'd be surprised.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

I think I've got it pretty well dialed in. If anything, on where the light is within 10-15 feet of it, it might be a little on the high side, but before it gets to the other light, it's like on the average to the low side of what it is. Because I tried to set everything up to where it's somewhere in the range without having essentially a night light in every breeding pen. Because, you know, when you when you order a certain number of 25-foot extension cords, the Amazon delivery guy kind of looks at you a little funny when he brings like a dang case of them.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

But I did that. I was sitting here thinking, you know, just why don't you run a continuous power line and just you know cut into it with just regular, you know, the gray type, that's UV protected type, instead of you do an extension cord.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

But hey, well, so ever gets it. I did that for part of the yard, but when I added on to it, I actually found some of the strings of lights, like for camping that you can put it. They also use them at construction sites where you can screw light, it's like an extension cord right that has so I use that, and I just use the screw in bulb and you know run it, run it through that way.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Now I understand. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Doing that also allows me to like you know, if if I need to move the bulb one way or another, yeah, I can just hop over one of the empty spots.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Not to take a left turn, but where are you at with your continuous flow water system?

SPEAKER_02 38:32

So with the continuous flow water system, I have it working on about a fourth of the yard. So one of the projects that I've had for the last six weeks, I've been adding some grow out space, like I didn't have enough. And I built me a 16 by 16, I also built a 14 by 22, and I'm gonna build another one that's probably gonna be a 14 by 26, maybe 32 for turkeys. Because I'm getting more and more people wanting heritage turkeys.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

So as finished birds or as birds.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Both both a lot of people are wanting polts, and then they're discovering that polts are pretty much suicidal, and then they're wanting you know, juveniles, like drakes and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

So the big thing I see moving in the pastured poultry world is buying started turkey polts where they're already six or eight weeks old. So you get them past that, you know, you get them past that suicidal age. Yeah. You may want to think about that. But anyway, let's get back on topic prep prepping your breeders for breeding.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

But the the the continuous feed water, it's working out really well. The noise that it makes draws them to it, like in the the reservoir.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

They can hear it in the pipe, huh? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

And I'm using turkey-sized nipples where the nipples are. And like last night, I went out and some of the, you know, some of them were being curious about it, and I hit it with my finger and it started squirting out water, and one of the roosters looked at me like I just handed him a million bucks or something. The light just went off, and he went over there and wore it out. So hopefully them wanting to play with it, being able to hear the noise that it makes when it jiggles will make them drink more water.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Well, you got the cups in there too, so they have a choice.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

Yeah, I got cups.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

They got those little pecker cups where they can hit that yellow thing in the middle, and so they've got choices. They can have a nipple or a cup.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Yep, they got choices. I I have not yet, but I may also put a plasma bale in there because I mean I haven't really had issues with them freezing up. There's been a couple times where it was in the teens for several hours overnight that I had to go grab the rubber hose and whip it really good to get it to break up the ice and then start working.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

But now, have you put any ice in the reservoir yet?

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Frozen bottles. Oh, it hadn't really been that hot. Okay. Thankfully. It it did rain yesterday, which blew a lot of people's minds because we hadn't had that in two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

So there's that. You'll have video for us in a in a full description soon, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

I want to I'm gonna sit out there and get some that that might be what I do Saturday when I'm not doing anything.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Perfect. Is is sit out there on my bucket and just get your favorite video of my favorite beverage and a cigar and just sit out there on your bucket.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

And that sounds like a plan for Saturday.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

I like it. Yeah, yeah. I'd join you if you weren't 14 hours away.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

I mean, it would be a little far, but you're always welcome. When you're thinking about feed, is obviously the requirements for birds during breeding season is different for laying season. What what do you want to look for? What do you want to stay away from? You know, what would you ideally do there?

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Look, I mean, it's you you again you you have to evaluate how important is your breeding season to you, right? And then you've got to make your decision on what what investment you're gonna make in that breeding feed. But you you've got to up your vitamins, your amino acids, and and get the bird prepared. You need at least 21 days before you start collecting eggs, okay, just to see the difference. You'll start seeing differences in seven to ten days, but to get the full impact of elevated nutrition going into the egg, which means it's going into your chick, you need about 21 days. You also need to be like, you know, when we had Jason Yukon a month or two ago, right? It's important to weigh your egg. Eggs. Okay. It's important to get your egg size right. Okay. It does you no favors to be setting small undersized eggs or oversized eggs. Right. So, and that's going to be a function of controlling the amount of feed that you're giving that bird. Okay. Because if they're eating too much, your egg size is going to be too large. And if they're not eating enough, if they're one of the ones getting pushed back that don't get a chance of defeater, you know, those egg sizes, you know, in the medium range are going to be iffy what kind of chicks you're going to get out of them. Now, the upper medium, right at the cusp of being a large egg, weight-wise, will still hatch out, especially on a heavy breed bird, it's going to hatch out a good chick. Okay. So you want to be at the very top end of the medium scale through the large, and about just into the extra large or about halfway through the extra large weight range. You know, so you're talking, you really don't want to be over 60 grams, 60, 62 max. Right? Your target weights should be 54 to 60, you know, as far as egg weights for most breeds, right? That doesn't apply to a banum, that doesn't apply to a duck. I'm talking about chickens, right?

SPEAKER_02 45:22

So you pull out a banum egg that's 60 grams.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

And you definitely need to re-look at your feeding program.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Yeah, somebody's cloica is is hurting. So anyway.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Bad.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Bad. She's struggling. She's struggling.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

All right. So obviously the the three aminos, you want to make sure there's plenty of lysine, methionine, and threanine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

I mean, all that stuff gets, you know, people don't really get it. Those those building blocks of proteins are getting transferred into the egg, which means they're going to be your chick development, right? So, you know, and that chick vigor, when those chicks pop, right, that chick vigor is huge.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

It is. You know, I I've actually been able to see birds that ate the feed that you designed as chicks, breeder birds, and seen their chicks come out. And their chicks come out like, hello world, here I am. Watch out. And I've seen, you know, I've I've fed I've fed in the past feed that I thought was good, and it's been, well, dang, I gotta find something to put in the water. I gotta give these birds something. They look puny when they hatch out. So it definitely transfers from the hen all the way through the chick.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

But that next chick, feeding it right all the way from chick till she's a lair, makes the next level, you know, better or easier or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_02 47:24

So, you know, yeah, like since I've been doing that for a couple years, I I don't I don't do crap in a brooder. Like, I've got uh four chicks that's two weeks old in the in my one of my brooders over there. Literally, all I did was put some water in there and put some feet in there, take them out. I took the hatching basket out there to the brooder with me, tossed them in there, plugged the heat plate up. I mean, uh changed water out every other day.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

It it's a big difference. I mean, you know, just look, I think everybody listening knows that proper nutrition is important, whether it's for you, whether it's for the chickens, whatever animal you got, right? If you don't realize that you know proper or balanced nutrition is important, then I mean you're lost. Sorry. Just you know.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

So we we've talked about that. What about housing and what what are you what kind of nest boxes? How big do they need to be? How do we need to set up these pens?

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Well, I mean, your nest box is dependent on the size of your breed, you know, like your Rhode Island Reds, they're true Rhode Island Reds, and they're a much bigger bird, right? You're talking about eight-pound hens in that eight-pound range, right? And they're wide and girthy. So, you know, if I had a standard bred Rhode Island red, like you and Sue and Rip have, I would be looking for a nest box that's 10 to 12 inches wide, probably close to 12 to 14 inches tall, and about 14 inches deep. So she a hand needs to be able to comfortably go in and turn around, you know. Just just make it a little, just like she's got to move her head to do it, right? So just so you could almost measure a bird from her tail head to where her neck attaches, and I need to be just about an inch wider than that, right? Just so she can do the whole turn. Okay, you know, I really want curtains on those nest boxes so she has privacy when she lays her egg. It it eliminates or reduces the chance of a second hand in there. You know, you know, everybody likes their privacy when they're doing private things. Okay, so it just is a good thing. Yeah. Before breeding season, you want to get some really good clean bedding material in those nest boxes if you're using bedding material, but I'm a fan of like some really great chopped straw. If you can't get some good chopped straw, you know, use some larger flake type uh pine shavings. Don't use peat moss in the nest boxes because when they come out and the bloom is on the egg, right? It's gonna stay like glue. Right. So now you're gonna have a peat moss covered egg. Doesn't hurt it, but you're gonna want to wash it before you put it in the incubator. But chopped straw shavings are really good. Never ever use hay for bedding. For whatever reason, it it leads to skin disorders, it often harbors things like mites. Mites and external parasites like living in hay, whereas they don't really care for straw, or they definitely don't like pine shavings, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:07

But so, and by straw, you're talking about that stuff that's kind of slick like bamboo. Nothing you would feed a cow or a horse, nothing like that. No, what you would spread out when you put down grass seed.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

Yep, exactly. All right, because there's very little sugar content in straw, whereas in hay, there's a fair amount of sugar content, and when it gets damp or you know, moist from the hen being in there, just her perspiration or body moisture, it's actually gonna start creating some molding or fermentation going on. Okay, so you're stimulating further fermentation. Things like straw and shavings don't do that. This is the one time when I actually go for a pine shaving over pretty much anything else, because the pine oil of the pine naturally repels you know any insects. So things like mites and lice don't like living in that piney environment. Right. So, yeah, I mean the best nest boxes I saw had three to four inches of pine shavings in the bottom. All right, she can get in there, she can get really comfortable, you know, she's got a nice fresh mattress, right? And she's good, yeah. Yeah, and you know, and if an accident happens, you clean it out and you put some, you know, you get your veil of pine shavings right there and you do it again.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

So Brian says five-gallon bucket laid on the side with a lid cut in half works well for him with American Games.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Now I see a lot of buckets either screwed to the wall, you know. I do like the nest box up about 16 inches off the ground, not too high, but I don't like it on the ground.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

But that just helps keep trash and and crap essentially out of it.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Right. Uh I'm not against the buckets and what he's doing with the half-cut lid. It should have a perch rail on the front so she can fly up to that and enter, right? But I would use, if it was me, okay, I would use black buckets so no light gets in through the sidewall. Whereas most of your white, yellow, most of your other colored buckets are gonna allow some light penetration in there. Again, she's looking for the darkest place. The instinct of a hen or any poultry is to look for the darkest place to lay their egg. Yep, that is their natural instinct, so we might as well make them happy, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:50

So and and like I use a I use five-gallon buckets a lot, yeah, and I use black ones. One of my my first laying pins that I had layers in back before I ever met Rip, was I had a black five-gallon bucket with I cut it was more a little more than half out the top, but I screwed from inside a two by four right above the lip because I didn't want them to like cut their legs when they were getting in it. And then I screwed another one to the bottom of the lid so they could, so they had that perch to get on it. And then I got three fender washers and some screws and stuck the thing to a tree and screwed it. That thing's still screwed to this tree, to a tree this day. And sometimes the free rangers, I'll I'll find eggs in it, but five-gallon buckets are great. Another thing you can do with a five-gallon bucket is set it on the ground right side up, and if you cut it in half, basically the the part at the top where the lip is and right below that, if you cut that, that's almost the perfect size for a turkey.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

Really?

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Yes, and Frank Reese Jr. put me on that because his he said he uses they're the same size as milk crates, they're one foot squares on the ground with an open top, and I was like, okay, and I don't know if it's because turkeys are communal or whatever, I don't know. But that that mine, I was getting eggs all over the place where my turkeys are. Took that, cut part off the bucket instead of finding a milk crate or whatever, stuck some straw down in that, came back the next day, had two eggs in it.

SPEAKER_00 56:07

Yep, now turkeys have a different instinct, right? Um and they are ground layers. Not that chickens aren't, but they are, you know, they're ground-laying birds, but they don't necessarily look for that darkest place, right? They're not looking for a darker place.

SPEAKER_02 56:24

I mean, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:27

Rob corrected me, not the darkest, not quite the darkest, right? But they do like, you know, get fairly dark to get, you know, for laying their eggs.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

Yeah, they they want a little privacy when they go do their business. Yeah, they do. I don't blame them, I do too. But you know, on the farm, five gallon buckets, you can do everything with that.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

You can. You can't. And you know what? If you're using a white one or a yellow one or something that lets light in it, I would just either paint it or I would figure out a way to lay something over it to darken the inside. That's the only thing I'm suggesting. I'm not saying don't use the white or the yellow or any other color. I'm just saying, you know, let's do something to help make it a little darker. You know, I'd like for it to be up off the ground, you know, right around 16 inches to the opening. Helps keep it cleaner, helps keep things out of it. Right, you're less likely to go out there and find a rat snake or a bull snake or something in it if it's up off the ground.

unknown 57:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 57:36

But you don't want it higher than your lowest roost point.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

No.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

They'll try to roost on it.

SPEAKER_00 57:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

And using a five-gallon bucket and screwing it to a wall or something like that, you're gonna have to have a very talented chicken to balance on it. Because they'll get up there and they'll start scratching, trying to land and stay straight, and then they'll fall off. They're just like, eh, screw this.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Well, you don't really want them roosting on it anyway.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

No, you don't, but then that's why it works.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

Somehow you've got to establish a perk trail, right? They need a place to come land before they enter. So figure out your perk rail. I've seen a lot of them screwed to the back of a shed, you know, in a row. If you don't have them screwed in there, if you've got two support bars, like the back sets here and the front sits here with a slight, just an ever so slight downhill angle, um, that works pretty good. You know, I've seen that set up, but and they were in a fully enclosed, not fully enclosed, the front side was open like a run-in shed. So the back was fairly dark, you know, if you have it placed at the right time of the day. But all right, what what do we miss?

SPEAKER_02 58:55

So one person says, never hear if it's important to have greens during any season, such as grass clippings, weeds, etc., for those that only have small flock, chicken runs, are greens really necessary.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

All right, so the right kind of greens uh are high in vitamin A. So greens are going to help, they're gonna help with embryo development, they're also gonna help with chick vigor and health when the chick comes out. So I'm gonna say yes, a small amount of greens is gonna be beneficial. Okay, now the most I've ever seen chickens eat as far as greens as part of their diet is five percent by weight. Okay, so it's not a large amount, but it's better if they're fresh greens and not fermented, like he he was talking about grass clippings. You got to get those grass clippings in there, you know, pretty quick within within an hour or so, because they they start wilting and fermenting and doing other things once they're cut, right? And they actually can start turning rancid on you after a few hours. So they need to be really fresh grass clippings. You know, if your runs don't have grass and you can't get your bird on living greens, you know, I'm not I'm all in. I mean, the grass clippings are fine. I did it too. You know, sprouted lentils are fine, but you do need so if you're gonna sprout, a lot of sprouts are done in the dark where they don't get a lot of sunlight. What you're after is the green and the chlorophyll in there is where you're gonna be getting your vitamin A from, right? Not I don't want a white sprout, okay? Uh I want something that's got as much green as I can give it. So, I mean, I would even be sprouting if if you wanted to, I'm not a big fan of fodder and sprouting, but you know, if you have no other choice, sprouting something like wheat or barley or any of your cereal grains, you know, sprouting those for six or seven, even eight days, it doesn't take a lot, right? I mean, it's hard to even measure. I would say a quarter cup of sprouts per mature bird is enough. Okay, and now if you're gonna sprout a grain, don't give them the seed part down that's been sitting in the water. There's a good chance that there's some mold down there, so you know, just give them the tops where it's you know, above the seed, out of the water, you know, clip that off and give it to them.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:43

So, what I did was I actually a couple years ago got a lawnmower that had a bagger and a mulching blade. And about once a month, I'll use it and cut the grass when it's good and green, and I'll take, you know, I'll take the bag off, handful, throw it in, handful, throw it in, and I'll give them a handful of that, and then you know, the rest of it'll go to the pigs because the coony coons, they they do like to graze on grass, but I do that for that reason, you know. I just just a little bit, something green, they're good. Anybody got any questions? We're at our where at our hour. I think we had a really good show. Good turnover.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

Yeah, I mean back to the greens. If people have access to it, like if they're in a horse area or something like that, you know, feeding just you know, good green alfalfa hay. If you can get some good green, and alfalfa carries more vitamin A than the grasses do, right? Than just a straight grass, like a grass out of your yard. For whatever reason, a legume hay tends to have higher vitamin content. Right. So, you know, if you can buy small barrels of alfalfa hay and give them a handful of that periodically, you know, if you can figure out a way to hang it, actually, and let them you know peck at it as they want, just so they stretch a little bit. They'll wait.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:15

So, what you do is you get you some string, like kite string, eye bolts that are designed to go in wood because they have like the point on the end and the thread, and then you go to your feed store and buy a 50-pound bag of alfalfa cubes. Screw the cubes on the eye bolt and let it dangle. They'll look at it kind of stupid for the first little bit, but once they see the shininess of the eye bolt and they the thing moves when they hit it, they'll they'll wear it down pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:57

Yeah, I you know, anything new that you give them, like even when we've talked about milk or yogurt or or you know, any of these little extras that you give them that's not part of their daily routine, the first day or two they look at you like like they don't trust you. Like, what is this? Is he trying to kill us? Right? Yeah, and then once they figure out what it is, and they're they can't wait for you to show up with more, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:24

So mine like the cubes. I can throw the cubes in on the ground and they'll you know, they'll peck at them and they'll run around, do all kinds of stuff with it. It's good entertainment.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

Yeah, I don't know if everybody has access to the cubes like you do. You have to kind of be in beef country to get the the alfalfa cubes. So you'll find something. I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

Oh yeah. Yeah. Where there's a wheel, there's always a way. Right.

unknown 1:04:55

You know.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:56

And with that, we will see y'all in two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

See y'all later.