Poultry Keepers Podcast

Blake Bell Talks Brahmas--Part 2

• Rip Stalvey, Carey Blackmon, and Blake Bell • Season 2 • Episode 79

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In this episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast, Rip Stalvey, Carey Blackmon, and Blake Bell discuss the nuances of brooding and raising Brahma chickens.  

 They focus on effective practices like using wire-bottom pens to maintain foot feathering and avoiding ground dirt. The conversation touches on the differences between light and dark Brahmas in terms of hardiness and feather maintenance and provide insights into conditioning birds for shows, including washing light Brahmas to remove fly spots. 

 They also address feeding strategies, emphasizing the use of consistent, high-protein mash feed, and discuss the pros and cons of fermenting feed. The speakers provide detailed advice on identifying ideal wing patterns for showing and maintaining a U-shaped tail in Brahmas. 

 The episode concludes with recommendations for resources, including the American Brahma Club, reputable breeders, and online communities. 

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Alex:

Welcome to another episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast where we talk poultry from feathers, to function. In this episode Rip Stallvee, Carey Blackman, and Blake Bell discuss the nuances of brooding and raising Brahma chickens.

Rip Stalvey:

We talked about hatching. What about brooding Brahma chicks? Anything special there?

Blake Bell:

When I brood them I typically start them in our five tier brooder. They stay in there for two weeks. Then I move them to another wire bottom pen, and the wire helps with the foot feathering, believe it or not. I find that if I put them on the ground with dirt, the dirt will actually mess with the foot feathering more than the wire will. I put them on wire, and I get them about two months old on wire, and then after that, they go into our brooding sheds, and I separate our males and our females at that point, two and a half, three months old, and then we just raise them out like that, and the dark brahmas, are way hardier than the light Brahms.

You were talking about the dirt messing with foot feathering more than the, than wire does, where you would think it would be opposite. But, I've heard Craig Hansen talk about the same thing with his coaches because he keeps his, of course he's got bantams, but he keeps them on wire floors.

Blake Bell:

I, I condition, if I do condition a bird, And that's just if I have five males that are fighting or whatnot, I'll put them in conditioning pins for a show, just so they don't beat each other up. I'll put them on wire too, even as adults.

Makes sense.

Blake Bell:

And then they need lots of grass. The more grass, the better. If they have access to grass as chicks, they will be larger, hardier just well rounded birds. If they're just on grain they won't be near as near as good chickens in my opinion.

You do it old school don't you?

Blake Bell:

Frank Reese taught me well.

Yes he did. We talked about rearing, we talked about breeding, you talked about coops. What about getting a brama ready for a show? What do you do there?

Blake Bell:

The only ones I wash are the light Brahmas and it's Mostly flies, actually, that get them dirty. The little brown dots that flies leave when they land on stuff, is if in the heat of the, in the heat of the summer, or in the late spring when the flies start coming out, they'll leave these little brown dots all over the light brahmas, and that's the only reason I have to wash them. Other than that, I just pull them straight out of the breed pen. And they go to the show.

I'm glad to hear you say something about flies because I hadn't noticed that too. And I thought I've never heard anybody else talk about it very much. So maybe I'm just imagining things, but I guess not.

Blake Bell:

Yeah, they leave those little black dots on everything. Let's see. When you do wash them, I use laundry detergent. I use, it's all free and clear. So there's no dyes, no scent, no nothing. It makes the birds very white on the light brahmas and it's not harmful if they drink it. Oh that way there's, you're not losing any chickens while you're washing them and it gets them clean. Makes

sense.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah, he's not the first person that I've had tell me that. I make laundry detergent as one of my businesses that I do here locally. And I actually had somebody ask me that if it was really like the brand name, and I said yeah I'm going to use it to wash my chickens, so I wanted to make sure I know you probably think that's a funny that's funny, but that's really what I'm going to do with it. I heard about it online and I wanted to try it. And then, when she got here and she saw all my chicken stuff. She knew that I took her serious when she said that.

Got a question here, wants to know, what size wire mesh on the floor of your pens?

Blake Bell:

Quarter by half. I don't use the quarter by quarter, it's just a little too small. But I use the quarter by half and then we use the same stuff for all of our rabbits too. So it's just nice to use the same thing for all of your species.

Makes life a lot simpler. We got a picture, a request here. See if I can find it. Can you show the picture of the two lights comparing largefowl and bantams? The tail sweep is different for largefowl and bantams, correct? Let's take a look, see here.

Blake Bell:

The tail sweep shouldn't be different, but just with the way they're being bred, you're gonna have a little bit of difference.

Yes.

Blake Bell:

On the females, your tail's medium in length, spread at the base, resembling an inverted U. On all of our other breeds, we want a triangle, but on the Brahmas, we're looking for an upside down U. It has to be a U, otherwise it's really not a Brahma tail. So on the lights, personally, I like the bantam better, and I wish my lights were like my bantams. I wish they had a sweep, because I think their tail should be almost, it should almost end up where their head is, so it should almost be level. And that's the old style Brahma. The new style Brahma is more like that light hen in the back, that large fowl. She has more of a flat back with just a little bit of angle at that tail, right where it's right, where it ends there. And I like a full sweep.

I agree. I can remember when I was a teenager and we had probably two or three breeders here that showed Brahmas in central Florida and his birds tails were well up. They were pretty much on level. With their heads, and it sure made them look good. I thought

Blake Bell:

neither of them are wrong because I mean I have the standard here So it says at the end of it carried high enough to continue the sweep of back So as long as it sweeps at all It's still standard and it's really up to our discretion on what we like

Gotcha

Blake Bell:

But a very a good solid tail set is one of my pet peeves if at any age They start dropping their tail Whether it's from the heat, the cold, stress, or they're just dropping their tail they go down the road. I want them to carry their tail under any circumstances at the right angle.

Carey Blackmon:

Makes sense.

Sorry, I lost my place. Debra Hudson says love the Frank Maurice birds. I raised and showed largefowl white Cornish from his lines. Frank has some good cornish too, but I need to go full screen so I can read this. Now I have dark partridge and blue partridge brahmas. Going to try to make some solid blues just for fun.

Carey Blackmon:

I want some of Frank Reese's turkeys.

Alright, do you have any news?

Blake Bell:

Yeah, I do. I'm going up there this weekend again to sort through some new hampshires. Chickens.

I got some of his birds, his new hamps, for a friend of mine. He said, I've never seen new hampshires like that. I said,

Blake Bell:

old style.

Yeah. Very much old style. But I'm an old guy, so I go for the old style. There's nothing wrong with

Carey Blackmon:

that. Nothing wrong at all with that.

Okay. So what about feed for Brahmins? Anything special there?

Blake Bell:

So this goes back to old style for me. Feed for Brahmins. I feed a 19 percent protein, I feed a mash, and I feed the same thing to every bird on the property, whether it's a duck, a goose, a chicken, a baby chicken a day old, a hen laying, they all get the same 19 percent protein, and the ducks, they just get a little bit of grass, and it grows them all good. And I don't believe in changing all your feeds around because that's just going to stress them out. If you go from baby chick feed to a different feed, it stresses them out. And then it takes them a whole two, three weeks to get their feed back. Gut back in balance and all of that. So I just feed the same thing all the way through and help they leave. But

you said you've fed a mash. Is that a really fine ground mash or a little coarser mash?

Blake Bell:

It's pretty fine. It's one step above baby powder.

Gotcha. I feed a mash, but it's more of a coarse grind. Me too.

Carey Blackmon:

And I found once my birds got used to that mash if they If I was to put a pellet in one of the feed cups now or in one of my troughs, my birds would probably look at me like I was crazy. It's, for me, it's easier to handle. It smells really good. And when it's already a mesh, like they can absorb more of the nutrition out of it. So I personally have found that they consume less feed than when I was feeding a traditional pellet.

Blake Bell:

Yeah I would agree with that. I can't I can't switch feeds now. They won't eat it. Like he was saying and the other thing is on the Brahmas, they need feed in front of them. So I said the lights eat all the time, but they also need feed in front of them all the time because they eat less that way, like 25 percent less if you have feed in front of them at all times. If I let them go out of feed, They'll go through two bags of feed in two days, per pen, just to catch back up to where they were cause they're big birds, they need a lot of, they need constant nourishment, and that's kinda why I like them on this grass, just, that way they get bugs and they get grass all day long, then they can go in, and get that grain, get that feed, and sleep on that, put that in their bodies, and then go back out on the field.

Shaggy wants to know what makes a good wing for the dark culler. I'm guessing he's talking about the pattern,

Blake Bell:

probably the pattern. So when you when you pull the wing out on your primaries, you just want the bottom edge to be edged in silver, basically, and it's from about halfway. Down the wing feather to the tip, and it's only the edge. So it's edged in silver for the primaries and the axle feather. And then when he gets to the secondaries, it's the opposite side, but half of the feather is silver and half of the feather is black, and that's the practical way to put it. And then we need to make sure that those wings are carried nice and horizontal and tight to the body. Your mic's off Rip.

Thank you. I have a bad habit of doing that when I cough and turn it off. Some people. I have a problem understanding that wing pattern. So I appreciate you explaining that the way you did. Deborah Hudson has a question here. What's y'all's opinion on fermenting the chicken feed?

Blake Bell:

My opinion on fermenting feed is it's good. If you have the time, the barrels, And the birds will eat it. So I've tried fermenting feed and my birds, they don't eat it. It gets stuck in the top of their mouth because it's still wet.

And

Blake Bell:

They just, they get turned off by that and they go off and they find other stuff to eat. So it doesn't work for my farm. But if you probably raised them up on it, it would probably work. And they definitely get more nutrition out of it in my opinion, but I just, it doesn't work for me.

I tried it and I found pretty much the same thing. And really it was more time consuming and more hassle than I was willing to devote to it at that time. I was just, that's back when I was working 80 hours a week and I just didn't have the time.

Carey Blackmon:

Yep. Yeah that's what I was going to say. Ferment and feed. That only works if you have the time to properly manage it. If you can't properly manage it you're dancing with disaster when it comes to being in there too long or whatever. Yes. And it's like both of y'all, I don't have that kind of time either.

I have a little more time now, but I just got lazy in my old age. So Pseudotropus wants to say that's a good explanation on wings. I thought so too. You done good, mate. Okay, if somebody wants to learn more about Brahmas, do you have any books you would recommend?

Blake Bell:

The first thing I would do is go join the American Brahma Club. They send out a a newsletter periodically. So I think it's three a year. There's a lot of good resources and a lot of knowledgeable people in there. And honestly, knowledge from a breeder is going to serve you better than knowledge from a book because the book, the words are there, but sometimes you don't understand them just like the wing color, but if a breeder explains it to you, they might be able to. To change it just a little bit to make it to where you can understand or comprehend it. I'd recommend just finding a breeder to mentor you and the color that you want to work with and then just ask them as many questions as they'll answer without telling you to stop asking questions.

There is that factor, yeah.

Blake Bell:

There's the standard of perfection and that's just an invaluable resource.

Yeah. What about websites? Any websites you'd recommend?

Blake Bell:

Um, Robert Anderson's website Blue Arrow Poultry has a lot of good information about brahmas on there. He's been doing it a long time and I look up to him and he's done really good with the birds.

I really like Bob. He's I've judged with him before and He is exceedingly knowledgeable in all things poultry. What about social media groups? Facebook groups or?

Blake Bell:

So there's a few. There's a group called Brahma's. I think it's like Brahma's Projects and Colors. So all of the colors get to be posted in there. It's on Facebook. There is the American Brahma Club Facebook group. They post a lot of good pictures on there and a lot of good information. And there's a few others. You just search up Brahma in your search feed and make sure that you're in an American group. Because in other countries, Brahmas have vulture hawks. So right behind the hawk is a a triangle section of stiff feathers. Thanks. And in our standard it's a disqualification, but in their standard you have to have it or they get disqualified. And it actually correlates with foot feathering and size. So we'll never have the foot feathering they have in Europe, but we don't have vulture hawks, so we can't.

I've never heard it explained that way, but that makes sense. Thank you. Anything else you want to add,

Blake Bell:

Blake? Unless anybody else has any questions they want to comment about all I got.

Don't have anything here. Cary, you got any questions for the good of the order here?

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah, Blake, I am curious, what is that over your right shoulder?

Blake Bell:

Left shoulder? Or, yeah, right shoulder. Okay, it's the back of the right. There's a dart on this.

That's what I was curious if it was that or if it was turkeys.

Blake Bell:

Yeah, those they're about the size of about the same size. Yeah, those are all my Brahma of them in that pen. Nice. We're hoping to show 30 at Shawnee, Oklahoma for the APA National Dark Brahmas.

So early on, sir. You alone, Blake, or with other people?

Blake Bell:

I went into those by myself. Oh, cool. That's going to be a lot of work.

You're going to be a tired puppy by the time you load all those things up and get them to the show and unload them. Yeah. Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

So earlier you were talking about how large they were. So to put it into perspective for the listeners, when you say large for a Brahma. What does a, like a 12, 14 month old cockerel and pullet look like as far as weight wise and maybe some kind of size comparison?

Blake Bell:

For size comparison The Brahmas behind me are six months old and we just weighed them and they're roughly six and a half to seven pounds. So they're very slow growing, but once they finish out, their dad weighs 13 and a half pounds. Gotcha. Okay. He's a pound and a half over standard weight. Think of a small dog like that's the size of a Brahma. Good analogy. Like, so if

Carey Blackmon:

we're going to KFC, a Brahma's the whole bucket.

Blake Bell:

Brahma's two buckets.

Carey Blackmon:

All right, the American Bresse better watch out.

Shaggy said he will see you at Shawnee. Yep. He's good people. Somebody's giving you a plug that you also have good information on your Facebook page about Brahmas.

Blake Bell:

I try to keep all my Facebook, my, on my personal profile, everything's poultry. I don't do anything that's not chickens.

Mike Franklin says that dark pan of 60 is a thing of beauty. I agree, Mike. Mike, they are something else. I don't have anything else. Kerry doesn't have anything else. And Blake doesn't have anything else. So I

Blake Bell:

have a drama real quick.

We got time. Okay. I'm going to show my

Blake Bell:

camera off. I'll

be right back. All right. Go for it. That's a treat. I've never had anybody say that. Just go grab a chicken for us.

Carey Blackmon:

I was going to say, that's not something that just happens every day. That's awesome.

I think Blake is the only person that we've ever interviewed or had on the show that was outside.

Carey Blackmon:

And I really liked it. The cicada, the cicadas, just really that and the roosters, just, that screams.

Well,

Carey Blackmon:

man, what's not to like about a rooster crewing? Come on. So while he's doing that, my wife and I are foster parents and we got a new foster child last night and she said, Is that chickens in the back? I said, yes, ma'am. She said, that sound they make, it's relaxing. I looked over at my wife and she said, he doesn't need any encouragement.

Thank you. I think your wife got your number. Yeah, it'll be alright. Aw, look. This

Blake Bell:

is a cockerel out of that pen. Like I said, he's only barely six months old.

Carey Blackmon:

But he's feathering out really nice.

Blake Bell:

And then, I can show on him, if you can see it, there's white edging right here on his thigh. That white edging is what gets the females penciling, but it's not in the standard that way, because it needs to be solid black to show. But if you keep the white edging in the fluff there on the thighs it keeps the penciling good.

Carey Blackmon:

So the white edging is definitely what you would need in a breeder bird.

Blake Bell:

Yes.

Carey Blackmon:

So the, so you get the penciling the way it needs to be. That's awesome. And same

Blake Bell:

thing with his breast. He has white white edging on some of the feathers here.

Yeah

Blake Bell:

and it's not enough to make it like a DQ or anything so you could show him if he's a really typey bird right but it also helps with that penciling

gotcha i appreciate you taking a few minutes go out there and snag one of those birds and make him a tv star yeah and

Blake Bell:

then here's your u shaped tail

yes

Blake Bell:

A lot of new, newcomers that message, and they ask to, what, pictures of the birds for sale. A lot of us Brahma breeders, we send pictures of the rear view to show they have a U shaped tail, and then often we'll get comments, You Brahma breeders just send pictures of their rear ends. But it's just, it's very important that we have this wide U shaped tail and not a triangle.

I agree with you. It, that's very much a Brahma characteristic. Very much.

Carey Blackmon:

On a wide bodied bird, it's important. Yep. Yes.

All righty Blake, we really appreciate you oh, Shaggy wants to know, do you double mate?

Blake Bell:

Yes and no. I have lines from eight different breeders that I keep here for dark brahmas specifically, and then I have my own line, which is a mixture of all of those, but I base them all back to those two birds. But the two Frank Rees birds, those go back to Barbara Piper, and I base all of my birds back onto that line,

I tell you what, Barbara had some magnificent birds, golly buh.

Blake Bell:

I double mate some, but a lot of it is just I pair the genetics I know that click, cause some lines when I test cross them, it turns out total garbage. And you'll lose the whole crop just because it didn't work, especially for a pattern color like this. But some lines, every time you cross them, it just clicks. And then for the rest of the time, it just works. Especially when you get to the third generation is just magnificent when it works.

Rip Stalvey:

Folks, we're running to the tail end of our show here. Blake, again, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your Brahmas with us. Carey, thank you for being here to keep me straight tonight. I need all the help I can get. So folks, until next time, keep enjoying your birds and have a good week.

Alex:

We Appreciate you joining us for another podcast episode. We hope you've enjoyed it as much as we did, and as always, we invite you to join us next Tuesday for another podcast episode.

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John Gunterman

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Mandelyn Royal

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Rip Stalvey

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