¶ Educational Resources and Nutrition for Poultry
We're going to start part two of educational resources right here where we left off in part one , so let's get started . Here's a bit of trivia about lomonas . What's different from lomonas than other American breeds ?
Oh , I can't remember . Rip , you're going to have to take this . I got nothing .
They lay a white-shelled egg . Your other American breeds lay a brown-shelled egg . Oh , I have heard that somewhere we talked about breeding and mating A book by Marley M-O-R-L-E-Y , jewel J-U-L-L called Poultry Breeding . It's a really good book to have on hand because he's using methods that were used to perfect the breeds we have in America today .
So you can glean little tidbits of information from that book about breeding Really good dual-purpose breeds . If that's what you're interested in are really good high-glaing strains of lagerns . You can use those same techniques to apply it to today's situation . He wrote another book that I like to poultry keeping and backyards .
If you go on archiveorg you can find a ton of other books and magazine .
You also mentioned some modern books , and all three of those I've looked at more than once . One of those we already touched on , which was the Standard of Perfection from the American Poultry Association , we did let you guys know already that they've got a new edition coming out , this one by Jeff Maddox . We've got niche poultry management nutrition .
That's a good one .
It's an excellent book it is that's propelled my flock in so many ways . I actually recommend that before . I'll recommend Story's Guide to Raising Chickens now to people . Yeah , Story's Guide is a great . I think Jeff's niche poultry is far superior . The quality of information and the density of information , especially for the nominal cost . Highly recommended it .
Jeff , also one of the probably the only poultry nutritionists that I'm aware of that works with standard bread breeds . What Fiji buy in the store are formulated for the modern hybrids and meat producers but not for standard bread or heritage bird .
They don't have the power in their nutrition that our heritage breeds need to really be successful and attain their genetic potential .
Well , these breeds were designed for a different diet , probably a farm based one , based on scraps , meat scraps , understanding that they no longer have the access to the necessary essential amino acids to put together a healthy egg , to actually healthier chicken . It all makes sense .
Exactly the other book I had here , John's already mentioned . Start when you Are with what you have by Ralph Bergen .
I've got my copy of that that I got on your recommendation and it lives in my back pocket most of the time . It's just everything that I need to do a sanity check on myself . He's got a chapter or a paragraph where I can go like , okay , I'm doing the right thing , or oh no , maybe not .
That book is available and it's certainly from the American Banham Association . I think it's like what ? $10 , john .
Yes , $10 , and it's a great investment . Every one of these books . You're going to save more in the first week in your poultry husbandry costs just by reading that book I guarantee . Whereas Justin Wilson says I guarantee .
Good old Justin Online resources . Here's a good starting place for you . Facebook groups there's one that I started I'm going to mention that , obviously but it's called poultry keepers 360 . Myself and Jeff Maddox and Karen Johnston work collectively on that group and we do a lot of written content , but we also do a lot of audio content .
Every other Tuesday night we do a live stream and it's totally free . It doesn't cost anything to watch it . We've done things on nutrition . We did one on Jeff's quick start program for baby chicks . That is tremendous . We did one on how to manage the molt .
Don't be afraid of it , you know it's a natural thing , but there's some things that you can do to best manage that molt , to help them molt quick , get through the molt and get back into another site .
Jeff Maddox has a group called poultry breeders nutrition that deals primarily with poultry nutrition , but we get off into some other subjects as well and if you can find a breed clip for your breed , those can be extremely helpful to you . I know , mandy , you have one for the American Breast Club .
That's really , really good and those breed club specific groups can give you good , dependable information .
I really like the Moran's Club too , and even though I no longer have Moran's , I'm still reading through some of their posts because there's a lot of knowledge in that group and any of the breed clubs . They should be packed full of knowledge about that variety .
And , mandy , I think you bring up an excellent point , is that we can learn a lot even by following along other breeds and what they recommend for breeding techniques , evaluating birds , some of those things we can take and apply to the breed that we're working with .
Yeah , a lot of the concepts are similar .
Another online resource , youtube . There's some good ones out there . Mandy's YouTube channel , arcadia and Orchard , is really , really good . She's produced some excellent videos . Ultra Key 360 has a channel where we archive all of our live streams in addition to some other videos that we have produced over time . Those are a couple of good ones .
Universities with poultry science programs can also provide you good videos to study and learn from . The University of Kentucky's Extension program has an excellent website with links to videos . That's Dr Jackie Jacobs , and one I've already mentioned I'll just mention it again is archiveorg .
It's called the Internet Archive , but there's just so much valuable information out there . During nutrition resources , my go to is Jeff Maddock . Jeff works for the fur trail company .
He has the very best information going for standard bred poultry and you better believe and I know John has experienced this and I think we probably all have that when we up our feed program and went to a higher quality feed , we saw tremendous differences in the birds we had compared to the birds that we had after we upped our feed gain , and it touches every
point of our birds lunch from even before chick is hatched the nutrition that the breeders have . If they don't have good nutrition . You don't have a good , strong chick , so it starts there and then it goes from the time a chick is hatched all the way through breeding and adulthood .
So it's one of those things , like they'll say , goes that nutrition doesn't cost , it pays .
Yeah sometimes the cheaper feeds are causing more expensive problems than just feed .
Well , if you're culling for curly toes and it's happening because of a nutrient deficiency , it's not genetics . Whoops , yeah , been there , done that , or Rhinex , me too , coming on at about a week One .
Yeah , if it's early , early issues . That goes all the way back to the breeding stock diet .
Absolutely .
And it can take up to 30 days for dietary changes to even present themselves within the egg yolk .
Oh yeah .
But at least two weeks before you even see a difference . So if you are changing around things to improve your hatch rates , it's important to remember to give them time because the next set of eggs you set a week after changing something in the diet it's not going to give you an accurate read on if you're getting an improvement .
You might have to give it at least a month or more before you start seeing improvements because it has to work from the gut all the way into the laying system , into the yolk , to see the improvements in the baby chicks .
And I'm glad you mentioned that , mandy , because that's important to remember . It's usually not an immediate response to up in their nutrition . Some things give you a noticeable response within our day . If your birds are exceptionally flighty , sometimes you can up their B vitamin consumption . Just get a water soluble B vitamin and dissolve it in their water .
I have seen flocks go from wild scatter brains just flying everywhere to changing that B vitamin and in that supplement to the next day they were significantly calmer , easier to work with and easier to be around . It's scary . That's neat , though it is Good to know information .
Yeah , before you start culling because of anything , make sure that you've got all your bases covered , starting with nutrition and husbandry , and then you could start saying , okay , it's not these things , it might be genetic .
I think a lot of people are quick to blame the bird , and it wasn't the bird that was the problem .
No , a good , high quality speed allows birds to reach their genetic potential . There's no doubt about that . But just remember what Jeff says Good feed ain't a cheap feed ain't good .
Anyway , one thing that we'd like to encourage you to do is to develop your own poultry library of resources that you will go to and you're going to find yourself referring to them time and time again . Old , out of print books are still available . You can find them on eBay or Etsy all sorts of places .
You mentioned , poultry shows sometimes have sales area and people sell their books .
Well , a lot of poultry shows will have a raffle and people will donate old poultry publications . I picked up a good collection of red-hand journals at a poultry show one time .
¶ Build Bird Library, Find Mentor
Another helpful thing to do while you're building up your library is to start a journal for the flock and write in your own library as well of your flock notes and particulars in the birds .
If you label your birds individually so you can track that , that's a good log to have , but also just your general notes of how things are going , especially through seasonal changes , hatch seasons , notes from your grow outs , and that way you can go back and reference if there were changes from batch to batch and you can start building your own library that way
too , to piggyback off of what you're learning , but learning your own birds as well , because you might find some stuff in your own flock that hadn't been mentioned yet , that could be unique to your breed or unique to your bloodline and that can be really valuable later on , especially if you turn around and start helping and mentoring other people .
There's knowledge you're going to acquire and gain that not many people are going to know already .
That's so true , so true , mandy , and I'm glad you brought up that point . One thing we want to talk about is learn how to see the whole bird . So many people looking to bird , the first thing they focus on is to comb , or maybe just to birds color .
Some folks are really good about seeing the top line of a bird , but just as important as the shape of the top line is the shape of the bottom line .
I think the bottom side gets neglected more often than not .
I would agree with that absolutely the bottom line the first thing I go to is balance . Yes , balance is the most important thing about a bird . When we're saying balance , we're talking about the proportions on a bird . Do they look balanced ? Does the tail look too big for that bird ?
If it does , he's probably going to have wings that are too big , because wings and tails are tied together . Big wings and big tails go together . Does the bird's head look out of proportion to the rest of its body ? Does the bird's height or leg length look out of proportion to what it looks like it should be ? So balance is very , very critical .
Also look at is half of the bird in front of the legs and half of the bird behind the legs . It doesn't look like it's about to fall over in either direction .
Right and leg placement can have a lot to factor in with that .
So how do you avoid that ? What do we call it ? Couped lion .
You've got to get out and look at other birds Friends breeding the same breed or friends breeding another breed . You know , look and study those birds . Go to shows . If you can Look at the birds in those shows , are they significantly different than your bird ? Are your birds about the same as the birds in the show ?
Sometimes you're going to find out that your birds are better than the birds in the show . But learn to talk to people who are experienced . Get you a metter and we're going to talk about that a little bit more in the future but get a metter that will let you bounce questions off of him or don't just spoke .
It goes back to a book that we were talking about earlier , john called Call of the Hinn . You know that book will help you learn to sort of translate what you're seeing on the outward part of the bird to the body of the bird , because the bird's actual body will many instances affect the look of the outward appearance . You know the tail angle .
That's something that I have trouble with when I'm trying to look at other people's birds online or through pictures , because a lot of times they're just they're taken at a weird angle and you know the bird's not raised up where we can see it properly and you don't see the entire bird and you don't see the other birds around it .
I actually like it when I see a picture of a flock and I could , you know , not just look at one bird but look at in general how the whole flock looks . Are they heterogeneous or not , or are they all ? Every single hand is very uniquely different .
You know , photos never work for evaluating birds . Photos are , like John said , many times taken at weird angles . They don't show the entire bird . And remember , a photo is just a moment in time , sure .
That's one of the features that I love so much about Mandolin's videos is she's got you know straight on camera angles , either from above or looking in , and you know she's handling the birds all the time .
And there's something that you just can't replace by that constant reinforcement and comparing one bird against the other and saying , no , this bird's , you know , same age , mandolin . This is where you excel . You take this Well .
So when I'm out there taking pictures of the flock , I already know what angle I'm trying to capture and there's no way I can tell this chicken what to do and just trying to get that perfect picture that shows what I'm trying to discuss . Sometimes that can take hours of working with a bird , and some birds are actually naturals at it .
I've had a couple who are complete hands and all I had to do was move my hand just a little bit towards them on one side and they turn and give me that perfect picture right then . And I didn't train them to do that , they just naturally do it .
But if there's a particular bird with something really important to show and it's uncooperative , even if I give them a little extra dose of B vitamins to calm them down , they just don't want to participate . So sometimes it's helpful to take a video of a bird and then go through frame by frame to catch the photo you're trying to get .
But to just run outside and start snapping pictures when you're standing above the bird , that changes the angle If the bird is turned ever so slightly to one side not a full on side shot . That's not going to be a helpful image to use and you've got to get down on their level .
And it's a lot easier to bring them up to your level and use a tabletop view because it puts you dead on and that's a lot easier than laying on the ground on your belly and trying to get that head on shot . That shows them better for a more accurate representation .
But pictures are never going to be able to replace your hands and what they feel like and that feel . It's way more important .
You really don't know about a bird to handle it . That's the bottom line .
I mean , the first thing Mandolin said when she grabbed a hold of one of my , shanna Clairs , was oh my gosh , they're so fluffy . Let's see what's hiding under all this fluff . But she's right , because I need fluff ? Because we hit negative 38 in the winter .
Yeah , but a good type of other seals in here .
So open up the standard perfection . What does it say about fluff ? For my type , oh , not a lot .
This has been a cool discussion , but before we leave , let's touch on the importance of a mentor , and how do you find a mentor , mandy , share your thoughts with us .
Well , so if you go to a poultry show , that's a good place and I've actually just wandered around aimlessly . You know I didn't have birds in the show , I was just there to hang out and listen . And when you find that collection of poultry friends standing with each other talking just kind of , I mean , don't be creepy , but they start listening .
And if they're having like a good productive bird knowledge breakdown conversation , see if you can just listen to that , because that's where you hear some amazing stuff . And if they're part of a breed that you're interested in , then maybe you can make some contacts that way .
But there's also the internet , which is a bottomless pit of resources and people , and you might have to go through a couple of different sources before you find like-minded people
¶ Find a Mentor in Poultry Breeding
. Because you want your mentor to be similar in plot goals as you . You want them to be someone that you can look up to , someone who's already been through what you're about to go through , because then they're going to have the encouragement when you need it .
They're going to have the advice when you need it and you want to be open to you don't necessarily need to be geographically close to you . I've got a couple of email , pen pals in other states and a couple of them will send me something and say I kind of want to give up and try something different . And I'm like , well , what's going on ?
Why isn't it working ? And then I can kind of guide them through and let them know Like , yeah , what you're flock doing it's not meeting your goals . Maybe you should consider a different variety or a different bloodline . And other times I have to say no , stop , you made progress , you're just not seeing it . Look , it's this bird . It's this bird .
What are your hands telling you ? And I can kind of talk them back from an edge of making a different kind of mistake where you give up too soon . You got to watch out for that .
No , I see too many people do that .
You've got to be patient and that highlights this trust and rapport that needs to develop , where you're actually confident in following through and taking the advice and the correction of the mentors , even though sometimes you think , and boy , I've got a lot invested in this .
That's why you can't give up too soon , because investing your resources and time for a single season often doesn't give you an accurate read on where you're actually at . And giving up too soon , well , it's a lot .
And we'll probably touch on that topic of that two and three year plateau that most readers hit .
Oh , and they have to add new blood .
I think , they need to . Yes , it's funny thing too that most people who come into poultry thinking they want to do it , once they find out that it is work and it's not easy work , it's not only physical work but it's mental work they stick around about three years and they kind of drop out of the hobby .
If you can find something in around five or six years , they're going to stick with it .
Yeah , I mean it's going to take you five or six years just to start to become recognized as being a halfway decent breeder that people may want to buy your stock . You're not going to buy a dozen or two eggs from a hatchery this year and next year and you're making money , at least ethically , selling anything .
If you try to go that route it's not going to last . But I have to build a reputation as you build the bird .
And I agree with what you're saying . But I just had a thought . I think the key to developing a good relationship with a mentor is you first have to build a good relationship period before they will really open up to you .
If they don't think that you trust what they're telling you and they don't think they can trust what you're telling them , it's never , ever going to work . You know , I mentioned Mr Reese frequently , who was my mentor in Rhode Island Red . It was a good year and a half , two years before I realized he was sharing everything he knew with me .
He wasn't just giving me that surface level information , he was giving me deep down information that he learned the hard way and when you could build that relationship with your mentor . The information you can get is absolutely unbelievable and you can't get it anywhere else .
And sometimes that could come from your source . For your birds you have to do your due diligence and find somebody in your area breeding the breed that you're interested in that has similar flock goals . It's almost naturally going to develop into that sort of relationship where they're going to want to see you succeed with their birds .
Yeah , that's true . I found a couple of people where , if anything happens to my flock , they've got my back and I'm mentoring them and they're helping me and it's like this cute little village .
You know the breeder that I've got my shanticleers from . They recently invested in importing a rooster from another breeder out west and they're Breeding them in and keeping them separate and doing a test run and it's like , hey , if this works out Would you be interested in . You know a closely related cousin .
Yeah , and you should absolutely take them up on that too absolutely yes .
But then I have I have infrastructure issues . I need to build more poultry housing .
Every year , just build a little more .
We all have infrastructure issues . Trust me . We think we we've got it nailed down and have enough . But here we go , sir and no , sir .
And then these other tempting breeds get dropped in my lap . Here Try this , and here try this . I Was down to one breed .
But I was too , john you blew it , didn't you ?
Yeah , well , it happens , right .
I've only got one other thing to say about looking for a mentor . If you're fortunate enough to have a local poultry club in your area , those can be invaluable resource . But when I was getting started there was one poultry club here in Florida and that was it just one for the whole state .
For the whole state , there was one club , one show Wow was that at least a centrally located show like Ocala ? it like one . Well , no , it was over in Orlando , but Okay that that was still a 60 mile drive just to go for a poultry club meeting . And we usually did lunch and and Made the most of it .
And and the discussions after lunch is where I learned a lot . But if you can get to a local poultry club , join them , support them . If they put on a show , golly bummed . They want , they need help putting on a show . It's not something just two or three or four people can do . So I would encourage you to become active in a local poultry club .
Yes , I know Vermont does not have an APA chapter and a good friend of mine , tanya , is actively , diligently working on getting a chapter established and .
That's not easy . It doesn't necessarily have to be affiliated with the APA , just a group of poultry folks who want to get together and talk chickens or duck or geese or well .
They have swap meets in the parking lot of the tractor supply and Walmart and though those have been really popular and really helpful and networking with other poultry people , I Was thinking about starting a local group that met at the library , because we have a lot of poultry , I mean .
I mean within our town even and a lot of people have the freedom to be able to hatch their own and breed their own .
They're allowed to have male birds on their Librarian is okay with live birds in the parking lot .
We wouldn't bring birds . That's a bio security risk .
No , there's gonna be people that want to bring their birds to have . Other people of value , I mean , I would love for the initial meeting . Yeah , eventually it's gonna happen . So build that capacity in at the beginning .
Just takes a little effort to find a mentor . They're not gonna come looking for you . You got to go Looking for them . That's all I have for this episode . I don't , john . Do you have anything , mandy ? I ?
Have a lot more . I could add a lot more I'm thinking about , but we're not gonna sit here for another three hours to get through that .
No , I don't think my bet could take that much longer agreed .
Well , folks , we thank you for joining us . We glad you listened in . We're gonna be back in a week Was a brand new topic that is Into this new series and we think you're going to find it interesting and helpful . So until then , keep your birds .
Scratchin , pecking I could , and I love it .
We'll work on that .
Folks , thanks for listening again . We'll talk to you soon . Bye .
Bye guys you .