Jan. 8, 2024
The Poultry Keepers Guide to Advanced Flock Management, Part 2
Ever wondered how the cost of chicken feed trickles down to the eggs on your breakfast plate? Prepare to be enlightened as we discuss the economics of poultry keeping, examining the pivotal role of feed costs in egg production. We'll share with you the phenomenon of 'chicken math,' revealing the game-changing strategy of measuring feed by weight rather than volume. Through the episode, we navigate the textures of poultry meat and the importance of tailoring your cooking techniques to optimize the flavors, whether your bird is a layer, a meat type, or a dual-purpose breed. With our insights, matching your culinary skills to the bird's breed is about to become your new superpower in the kitchen.
As we progress, we confront the complex but necessary subject of culling birds from the flock. Through personal experiences and strategies, we dissect the balance between flock productivity and sustainability. You'll hear how we allocate specific segments of the flock for culling, consumption, breeding, and more; like how I allocate 50% for the freezer, 40% for distribution, and keep the remaining 10% for breeding purposes. The episode wraps up with a deep dive into the breeding and hatchery side of poultry farming. We'll share tales from our transition from a humble coop to a large-scale operation, and discuss how modern technology, like GoV sensors, is revolutionizing the incubation process. Prepare to gather a flock of wisdom from our poultry farming endeavors!
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00:00 - Poultry Keeping
15:04 - Culling Birds for Efficiency and Sustainability
23:16 - Poultry Farming Breeding and Hatchery
WEBVTT
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Hi and welcome to the Poultry Keepers Podcast.
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I'm Mandolin Royall and I'm here together with Rip Stalvey and John Gunterman, and we're your co-host for this show, and it's our mission to help you have happy, healthy and a productive flock.
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Another thing you can look at too, is the feed cost per dozen eggs.
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Oh yeah, that's good.
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We don't talk about that we should talk about that.
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I wish I had the data for that.
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There's just something else for you to do now, Mandy, and actually.
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Jeff did that in the niche poultry book, whatever it's called this edition cost per egg based on different feeds and husbandry techniques.
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And it's a start.
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We call that chicken math.
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In order for me to collect that data.
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With the way I'm set up and I'm still doing the wrong thing of free choice feeding because I haven't swapped my feeders out so I would have to track how many birds I have in a pen and how often I'm refilling that feeder to come up with a pounds per week average and that will kind of get me close to the numbers I need.
00:01:19.256 --> 00:01:22.805
But since I'm over a few just rough number.
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It stay four ounces per bird per day.
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I'm trying to talk myself into going out there every morning, giving them a measured amount and seeing how much is left at the end of the day, and I've got my feed scoop.
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It's got a line that I drew with a Sharpie marker on it, which is about a day's worth.
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You know there's dust at the end of the day With the hands we're set up.
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I might have four birds in there.
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There might be 12 birds, there might be eight, there might be two.
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It depends.
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It depends on what they're doing.
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Yeah, and why they're in that pen and who they're in there with and you're only.
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you only have one feed formulation as well.
00:02:01.650 --> 00:02:07.552
That's true, yeah, wait till you get down the road of mixing your own feed.
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I'm not there yet.
00:02:09.544 --> 00:02:10.287
I'm nowhere close.
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In fact I'm going to default to a small producer.
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I've got to draft my order and I'm probably going to bring in four or five different recipes and try them on all the age appropriate categories and see what differences I see.
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And the only way I'm going to get a fair trial out of that is to keep doing what I'm doing in a pen or two and then doing it dramatically different in other pens and then watching those birds and let the birds tell me.
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What I've noticed is a definite reduction in the amount of ammonia production by feeding an age appropriate ration, because you're never giving them too much protein.
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And too much protein will make extra stinky poops.
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Yes, Quite.
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Coincidentally or not, we need to have Jeff on to talk about that.
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Maybe the best thing.
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I ever did was sit next to Jeff for two full days at a poultry show.
00:03:03.949 --> 00:03:23.913
But feed cost is a real thing and I'm actually, you know, restocking on a lot of my base grains for my formulas now and noticing that you know it's 12.50 a bag for whole corn and it's 12.50 a bag for my whole oats and 14.25 a bag for my wheat, and going, okay, how much does this actually equal out at the end?
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And I'm starting a spreadsheet to track to the penny how much each ounce of food costs to make myself.
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I know I save money, but I also know my birds are a lot healthier.
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Yeah, there's definitely some win-win involved, but now that's a whole other rapid hold.
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There's a huge labor involvement, though I mean it's.
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Yeah, the time investment.
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At least every two weeks.
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It's a couple of hours mixing feed and when we swell in spring and we've got a lot of little mouths to feed, you know I'm mixing a fresh batch every week and that's two to three hours, start to finish.
00:04:01.110 --> 00:04:06.227
And with your numbers you can't do that, not unless you hire some interns.
00:04:07.371 --> 00:04:11.626
Yeah, and a fresh out of interns, but anyways, we're getting way off topic.
00:04:11.947 --> 00:04:14.879
No, no, I don't like Back to what we were talking about today Y'all are covering some good stuff.
00:04:15.139 --> 00:04:18.983
We're getting bread to be eaten and the differences in meat texture.
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That's a fun topic.
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Man.
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There's so many variables that come into play there.
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Each breed can be different.
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Oh yeah.
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You know, if their bred to lay eggs or if their bred to be meat birds or if their dual purpose can get three basic different plashing types there.
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Yeah, the way that they're fleshed in, because if you look at like commercial hatchery leghorns, for example, they're going to be productive as heck chances are.
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But when you go and you process them they're probably going to be a little bit lean and they're probably going to be a little bit stringy in the meat texture, because one was the last time someone took that genetic pool and used them for food.
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Yeah, exactly.
00:05:05.324 --> 00:05:09.555
I wonder how long it's been for some variety, since someone ate one.
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It could have been decades.
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Well, I can remember as a kid that white leghorns back then were big enough you could get cockerels and process them for fryers.
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They were large today.
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You can't, just won't work.
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They're too small.
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So some breeds have only gone some changes.
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Well, there's breeds that were specifically bred to be meat producers, that have slowly shifted to being egg producers over the decades, and vice versa.
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We almost want to just process a couple and see if the type of birds you have are suitable for your palate.
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But it's also tricky to make that transition because if you're accustomed to store-bought Cornish Cross commercial type hybrid strains, that meat texture is going to be significantly different than that of a two-year-old spent productive layer who's at the end of her peak production.
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That texture difference is going to be incredible.
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You can't take those old hands and process them and fry them.
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It's not going to be a good texture.
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The cooking method changes with age.
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So once you get out past 24 weeks there's a tightening to the tissues where you want to start thinking about how you're going to brine them and prepare them, how you want to age them and then how you want to cook them.
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Because you shouldn't go into older birds with a fast, high-temperature cooking method in mind, you're going to want to do the exact opposite and go for low and slow, which John probably knows a lot more about the variety of recipes for older birds.
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I would always, especially if you've got an old male default to the Coque Auvent or it means rooster in wine, coque, coque, qu, whatever.
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In French Auvent just means old rooster in wine because you're actually using all that.
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The rooster itself is producing so much testosterone over its lifetime and that flavor is being absorbed by the meat.
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Just like having a difference between a buck for goat meat and having a milker.
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You can definitely taste that the meat picks up the flavor of the male.
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The goat is kind of an extreme example, but it really sets the point.
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We eat a lot of retired dairy cows as beef here because I live next door to a 250-head dairy.
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Those definitely have a flavor that's very different than a commercial-raised cattle.
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They're out on pasture all day and they have access to all the nutrients and they are very, very spoiled as far as dairy cows go.
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I'm sure they are.
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But to me that also changes the flavor of the meat.
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In the culinary world we talk about terroir and taste of place and just the natural forage, whether and even unnatural forage the feed that you're giving to your chickens.
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If you change that, ultimately the flavor of the meat will change.
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If they're out on pasture, that's going to be affected by seasonal availabilities to insects and just everything.
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Yeah, that's, very true.
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That's flavoring the meat.
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There's also, as you mentioned, there's a flavor shift that happens when they hit sexual maturity, but also there's a seasonal flavor shift depending on when in the year you're harvesting your birds.
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Basically, I found they taste a lot like what they were eating the last two to three weeks of their life.
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I like to say four weeks, because sometimes it can take four weeks before a dietary change becomes part of the flavor, but definitely a minimum of two weeks and it's more apparent at six weeks.
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Yeah, so pasture finished is definitely something I can taste the difference.
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You have limited infrastructure.
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If you don't have a lot of pasture, at least give your birds the last couple of weeks out in some sunshine and just being chickens, instead of cooped up in a pen.
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So, what's the?
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American breast that preferred methods are to put them out on pasture early.
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You want them out there at six, seven, eight weeks old, scrounge it for whatever they can and then at the very end you go into a confinement, finishing for two to four weeks.
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But your males are also caponized before they hit sexual maturity.
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Sometimes you can do it.
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They have them split by price in France, based on if they were caponized or not.
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So for the capons that's the most expensive way to get them and it's stipulated in the regulations that they need to see all four seasons.
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They need to see spring, summer, fall and they're served at Christmas.
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But the regular cockerels that are put on the finishing at like 14 weeks or so, that's about the cheapest way to get them overseas.
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Because they weren't caponized, they didn't grow them out for very long, they just threw them out, let them do their thing, brought them in for finishing and then processed them.
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And they still did some fancy, fancy aging with them, where they're dried and aged for 10 days and wrapped in linen for the compression, for the marbling and all that fancy stuff.
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But we don't go to those lengths in our operation.
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We're in Ohio, we're not in.
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France.
00:10:48.846 --> 00:11:05.932
But they're picking up, know, some extra inter muscular fat deposition and flavor in those last couple of weeks based upon that high protein, high fat diet you're giving them of corn and milk or cream, I believe.
00:11:06.892 --> 00:11:10.303
It's almost a lowering of the protein, because they've been pulled off the pasture.
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There's no more bugs, there's no more High protein snack edge, it's just the corn wheat and milk and it's mayor's milk, not cow.
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I'm thinking of that correctly, but it's like they tank the protein so that it turns into a fat gain.
00:11:28.270 --> 00:11:30.659
Well, this leads me to another question here.
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But what about the difference in To taste or flavor or whatever you want, even texture, between old hands and old roosters, old males?
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So the sweetest chicken I ever had was two year old breast hen.
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There was it like a I don't know how to describe it, but it was a sweetness to the flavor that the boys just don't have.
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So if you want that chickeny flavor to be the focal point of the meal, you don't overspice it, you don't over season it, you don't brine it for 24 hours.
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You just keep everything very mild, cook appropriately for the age of the bird and let the chicken flavor be the flavor, because it's there.
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You don't have to force it, you don't have to fake it.
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That's where you're gonna get your best schmaltz, oh.
00:12:18.851 --> 00:12:36.179
Yeah, especially if you let them go ahead and be fat and you increase that and you don't force them through the mold, you don't put them on a diet, you just let them be as fat as they're gonna get, and it'll be an inch, an inch and a half thick on the back side.
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When you go and open up that bird, you're gonna see fat everywhere and you can harvest that out separately because it's too much for that one bird to cook in, and you can definitely separate it out and use it separately.
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I've done that good stuff, especially when you go and you cook rice in it too.
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Now we're talking our dumplings or dumplings, or soup or a stock or, and if you actually start experimenting and let's say you take a little bit of chicken broth and a little bit of vegetable broth and a little bit of beef broth and you almost do like equal parts of each one that flavor when those get mixed and you incorporate it into other dishes.
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We're starting to get a little bit culinary here and I'm loving it.
00:13:19.111 --> 00:13:26.155
Well, honestly, if I had to choose between the three, I Go with chicken, just straight chicken broth.
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I'll put the flavor nuance.
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Just add a little bit of beef, a little bit of vegetable, let all that soak into some rice.
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Add in some Really fresh, crispy vegetables that are just lightly Salt-free, like you don't want to let everything cook into a mush, but keep that freshness in there and bring that flavor profile up.
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Then just easy on the seasoning, because you don't really need much.
00:13:48.381 --> 00:13:54.580
No, and and I was referring to the difference between Chicken or beef or whatever.
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You know, I much prefer the flavor of chicken broth and All of it you know when, when I was a kid and I was sick, my grandmother always gave me chicken soup and there is something magical about the chicken fat and schmaltz it, and there's been some scientific studies on this there.
00:14:11.527 --> 00:14:35.961
There is something I don't want to say magical, but scientific behind the fact that it helps you recover when your immune system has been a little Worn down it only gets magical when you have loved that bird for years and it had ample time to do its chicken thing on the foods it was supposed to be on, with all the bugs and the grass, and then it's different and it's special.
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I like to say all my chickens, and I stole this from Jill Salatin.
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They have an incredible life and one really bad day, but it's it's my goal to give them the best possible chicken life that they can, because I believe that Transfers to the health and vitality of the bird and it hell Transfers to the health and vitality of its offspring and to the people who consume that to sustain them.
00:15:00.686 --> 00:15:01.288
That's true.
00:15:01.288 --> 00:15:02.511
Yeah you are what you eat.
00:15:02.913 --> 00:15:03.475
Yes, indeed.
00:15:03.475 --> 00:15:09.475
What about Gonna shift gears here just slightly, because we're getting that close to the end here?
00:15:09.475 --> 00:15:22.626
But what about the old-fashioned message of Culling birds to eat or to remove from the flock period, for example?
00:15:22.626 --> 00:15:24.330
I'll just throw this out here.
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I think there is an advantage to continuously removing non-layers or per performers from the flock, because that's gonna keep your feed costs down and no need keeping non-productive birds.
00:15:39.410 --> 00:15:41.015
No, it's just dead weight.
00:15:41.160 --> 00:15:50.618
No pun intended, but well, you want to touch out a certain number to maintain your genetic pool and your sustainability, which means the rule of 10s.
00:15:50.618 --> 00:15:56.157
We hatch a hundred chicks, we're gonna keep maybe 10 to breed forward.
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10 out of 100.
00:15:56.937 --> 00:16:03.373
So that means 90 of those birds are never gonna potentially even reach full maturity.
00:16:03.373 --> 00:16:05.269
So where do they go?
00:16:05.269 --> 00:16:09.648
They on a dinner plate or Somebody's dinner plate?
00:16:09.648 --> 00:16:15.570
I would hate to think you're just hatching birds and then you know, not utilizing them as a resource.
00:16:16.885 --> 00:16:23.259
I'm at the point where I need to share out some growth rate to help other people see that it is possible.
00:16:23.259 --> 00:16:34.519
So we've adopted a blanket 50% calling into the freezer Approach and then sharing out 40% of who's better than freezer grade and then retaining 10%.
00:16:34.519 --> 00:16:50.610
But I'm always continuously looking for birds to call, especially since we rescued this little super cute, pathetic little Yorkie who seems to be Excelling on more of a raw diet and I just ran out of Turkey yesterday.
00:16:50.610 --> 00:17:06.256
So I'm gonna go out to the barn today and I'm gonna look for one bird and I'm gonna process that one bird today and I'm gonna get it prepped for that little dog and that'll last her a couple days before I got to go Call some beef out or venison or pick another chicken.
00:17:07.425 --> 00:17:09.730
And that's something that I noticed.
00:17:09.730 --> 00:17:22.083
My father adopted my old Jack Russell Terrier, who had a lot of Issues and was age, and he put him on a raw diet and the improvement was astounding Just her skin condition.
00:17:22.221 --> 00:17:27.526
She was getting really greasy and I looked into that because I've never had a Yorkie before.
00:17:27.526 --> 00:17:32.951
It's not my kind of dog really, I prefer German shepherds and she had a lot of my gunk.
00:17:32.951 --> 00:17:40.301
That was Giving off the impression that she had some food allergies going on, and I tried a couple of different types of kibble.
00:17:40.301 --> 00:17:41.184
Nothing changed.
00:17:41.184 --> 00:17:47.805
I Read through ingredients, did a cost analysis on pre-manufactured raw foods and I wasn't crazy about that.
00:17:47.805 --> 00:17:51.740
No, I'm gonna shop my flock and find her protein that way.
00:17:52.243 --> 00:17:52.545
There you go.
00:17:52.545 --> 00:17:57.877
I was talking with our favorite poultry nutritionist about my new puppy here.
00:17:57.877 --> 00:18:00.771
He's like well, you've got all these quail.
00:18:00.771 --> 00:18:01.513
You know what?
00:18:01.513 --> 00:18:02.576
They are perfect.
00:18:02.576 --> 00:18:09.031
Just remove the gizzard and you could not get a perfect, more perfect meal the quail a day keeps the doctor away.
00:18:09.231 --> 00:18:09.934
Yeah, okay.
00:18:11.367 --> 00:18:13.424
But unfortunately they're paying the bills right now.
00:18:13.424 --> 00:18:18.698
So I can't even afford to hide dog bill because other people are paying me to feed their dogs quail.
00:18:19.885 --> 00:18:21.432
Well, he needs more space.
00:18:22.746 --> 00:18:23.528
It's the winter.
00:18:23.528 --> 00:18:26.980
I can't keep my waterers from freezing up right now, mm-hmm.
00:18:26.980 --> 00:18:32.817
That makes it alive and they're particularly sensitive to any disruption.
00:18:32.817 --> 00:18:36.233
They find creative ways to unalive themselves.
00:18:37.449 --> 00:18:38.519
I've heard that about quail.
00:18:38.519 --> 00:18:51.285
I Really tried them once a long time ago and I didn't pursue it because my setup was not conducive to Keeping them contained and every time I went to check on them I lost one or two to escape.
00:18:52.795 --> 00:18:53.076
They.
00:18:53.076 --> 00:18:57.775
They do that, but there's always a use for your birds.
00:18:57.775 --> 00:19:01.653
If you're not going to eat them yourself, reach out local marketplaces.
00:19:01.653 --> 00:19:03.436
There's families that can.
00:19:03.436 --> 00:19:06.753
They'll be happy to take a bird, even if it's alive.
00:19:06.753 --> 00:19:21.176
If you don't want to do the unaliving yourself, there's people who will come and take them and take care of that for you and make sure that that life is not wasted and goes on to sustain other people who may not be in a financial situation too.
00:19:22.348 --> 00:19:35.392
Yeah, this is true, we have a couple of families that we work with and I did have some recent correspondence with the Cincinnati Zoo, but I'm probably not going to pursue that because of how much they want, I can't even come close to fulfilling that.
00:19:36.924 --> 00:19:42.134
There's a raptor recovery center there's two of them here in Vermont and they'll take birds.
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They insist on them being alive.
00:19:44.948 --> 00:19:45.470
See the one.
00:19:45.470 --> 00:19:52.258
We have a raptor rescue just 10 minutes away and they have to have day old, no exceptions.
00:19:52.258 --> 00:19:56.191
They'll say well, I can't do it at day old, I like to grow everybody up to dinner size.
00:19:57.724 --> 00:20:00.010
And the pet industry feeders all the chicks.
00:20:00.010 --> 00:20:01.955
They want chicks.
00:20:01.955 --> 00:20:19.856
So there are ethical outlets for your culls, but as long as you're continuously removing birds, you're keeping your costs down, and as feed costs and infrastructure costs rise, the bottom line gets thinner and thinner.
00:20:21.184 --> 00:20:29.554
For example, if you have, let's say, there's 12 hens at a pen and you're averaging 10 eggs a day, and you never get 11 or 12 eggs a day, just 10.
00:20:29.554 --> 00:20:37.470
So that means you have one or two that aren't laying at all, or there's a couple who are laying less than the others.
00:20:37.470 --> 00:20:49.647
So it becomes really beneficial to figure out why, if there's 12 there, you're getting 10 eggs, and if there's a bird or two that needs to come out, or if half of them are slower at laying than the others.
00:20:49.647 --> 00:21:04.836
You can go through and figure out your better breeding stock out of that laying situation by identifying who is laying what, how often and how, and then you can trim off your wasteful birds who are just taking up space and not producing anything.
00:21:04.836 --> 00:21:17.652
If you can keep those moving out so that you can replace them with favorable pellets from the better producing birds, in the long run it's just going to make your flock stronger and healthier and better producing.
00:21:18.525 --> 00:21:21.012
You're breeding yourself towards better, more efficient production.
00:21:21.012 --> 00:21:28.211
A hen that lays five eggs per week versus a hen that lays three eggs per week is still going to cost you the same to feed and board.
00:21:29.164 --> 00:21:30.407
And the same space for housing.
00:21:30.407 --> 00:21:32.374
Which one's better?
00:21:33.684 --> 00:21:40.791
So she can go to a backyard flock somebody who doesn't mind that level of production, or a freezer or somewhere else.
00:21:41.567 --> 00:21:43.455
Yeah, as long as you do full disclosure there.
00:21:43.455 --> 00:21:52.184
You don't want to take your problem birds that you're calling out and then place them into another flock without full disclosure, because there's way too many people.
00:21:52.184 --> 00:22:05.528
If you scroll through Facebook Rehoming Groups or Craigslist and people have like one, two or three birds that they're trying to unload, sometimes that might be a really aggressive bird.
00:22:05.528 --> 00:22:07.257
That might be a poor producing bird.
00:22:07.257 --> 00:22:10.250
That might be a bird that's never laid an egg in the life.
00:22:11.286 --> 00:22:14.750
And it's a huge biohazard coming onto the farm, right?
00:22:14.750 --> 00:22:15.932
No, thank you, I'm out.
00:22:15.952 --> 00:22:18.696
No, no your breeder, no, your birds.
00:22:18.696 --> 00:22:25.115
No, why they're getting out of them If there's birds up for removal from the flock that they're not willing to terminally call.
00:22:25.115 --> 00:22:36.105
Because if I have a bird like, there was an instance a couple of years ago where I had a pen of polyts and this pen had, you know, like seven birds in it that I was growing out to wait and see what they did, I go in there.
00:22:36.105 --> 00:22:43.413
One of them, scout, scout, like that whole flap of skin was pulled back and I was like, wow, that's a level of aggression I don't like to see.
00:22:43.413 --> 00:22:45.790
So I'm looking for the culprit.
00:22:45.790 --> 00:22:50.695
So I found one who had her face covered in blood and she was otherwise fine.
00:22:50.695 --> 00:22:56.586
So I pulled her out and then, just to see how she would act, I put her in another group of older polyts, wouldn't you know?
00:22:56.586 --> 00:22:58.511
She went in there and tried to tear them all up too.
00:22:58.873 --> 00:22:59.294
Oh gosh.
00:22:59.815 --> 00:23:00.436
A month younger.
00:23:00.436 --> 00:23:08.193
A month younger, going in there, like I'm in charge, you're going to listen to me, and if you're not going to bow down to my leadership, I'm going to tear you up.
00:23:08.193 --> 00:23:11.372
So that one got paired with dumplings.
00:23:13.390 --> 00:23:14.634
Well, never tolerate aggression.
00:23:16.568 --> 00:23:19.817
I look for any reason, really because we're hungry, we eat a lot of chicken.
00:23:19.817 --> 00:23:21.288
Now we've got this dog that eats chicken.
00:23:21.288 --> 00:23:23.047
I'm not shy.
00:23:24.444 --> 00:23:26.051
And you have the numbers to select from.
00:23:26.265 --> 00:23:29.608
And I have an incubator to just keep it going, just keep it going.
00:23:29.608 --> 00:23:31.469
Call it out, hatch more.
00:23:32.825 --> 00:23:35.153
For people who don't have that much space.
00:23:36.509 --> 00:24:07.694
It gets a little tricky then because I used to have a much smaller coop and then I started seeing what all I could be looking for and selecting for and then I realized how many pens that would take, and then I realized how many birds that might take and we just kept expanding until I found like a comfortable position that met our needs and it turns out that's a giant barn, multiple pens, dedicated hatch room, but it's smooth sailing with everything where it needs to be in.
00:24:07.734 --> 00:24:20.726
Our freezer Doesn't run out and I'm more at the carry over a dozen as my breeding stock expand out in the spring, grow them out, cull them down, get ready for fall Again.
00:24:20.726 --> 00:24:30.487
Looking at those fast molting birds in the fall me that's huge, because for a month or longer they're out of production completely.
00:24:30.487 --> 00:24:31.808
That's more money spent.
00:24:32.476 --> 00:24:35.363
Yeah, and you definitely want to pay attention to how long their break is.
00:24:35.363 --> 00:24:38.259
Is it four weeks or is it four months?
00:24:38.259 --> 00:24:46.769
Because if it's four months, I mean what's the cutoff of how long you let a bird stay on break from that big 18-month molt?
00:24:46.769 --> 00:24:50.662
Do you give them until that whole next spring to start laying again?
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