Poultry Keepers Podcast

Spring Fever Is Real - Part 2

• Rip Stalvey, John Gunterman, and Mandelyn Royal • Season 2 • Episode 93

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In Part 2 of “Spring Fever Is Real,” the Poultry Keepers Podcast team dives deep into the realities of spring chick season, feed shortages, overstocked coops, and the consequences of poor planning. Hosts Rip Stalvey, Mandelyn Royal, and John Gunterman share personal insights on how chicken math can spiral out of control and offer real-world advice on incubator capacity, grow-out planning, feed availability, and breeder burnout. 

Whether you're new to poultry or rethinking your hatching goals, this episode is filled with practical wisdom to help you raise strong, sustainable flocks without losing your sanity—or your space.

Join the conversation, share your own chicken math story, and don't forget to subscribe for weekly poultry knowledge!

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Alex:

Today we'll finish up our Spring Fever is Real topic with Part 2, We'll pick up where we left off last week. Now on with the Show!

John Gunterman:

I don't think the backyard poultry keeper really impacts the global feed market that much. When it comes down to the overall picture, but we're gonna feel the effects of the global feed market, commodity pricing fluctuations that are, yes.

Rip Stalvey:

Oh, absolutely. I've seen it down here, of course we're in Florida, we're pretty much a feed desert. We don't have any local mills to speak of or anything like that. We can't grow any grains down here. We have to bring everything in to make chicken feed. And I've seen a situation where they would almost have fist flights at the feed stores trying to get Chick feed. Yep. Because they just couldn't get the supplies in. Sure.

Mandelyn Royal:

Now, in what I know about retail, purchasing those agreements, let's say for rural King tractor supply or whatever version of that you have down there. They're utilizing the matrix of the numbers of the prior year sales, right? And some of that historical data. So if this season is at unheard of levels for competition of getting birds, once those birds are there, and now they all have to eat, the smart retail managers already bumped up their orders. But if they were not thinking about it at all, they're gonna be sitting on empty shelves. Because that's a lot of in advance thinking that has to happen. And if it didn't happen, yeah, there's gonna be some shortages because they're working off of old numbers that doesn't reflect the activity of the flocks right now. Sure.

John Gunterman:

And then folks can get into a situation of having to make poor nutritional choices for their birds. And so absolutely less than ideal feed.

Mandelyn Royal:

If you ran out of feed and you're there on that day, you're gonna take whatever bag they have available.

Rip Stalvey:

And one part that we don't seldom think about is the people at the feed stores. Bless their heart. I know they try, but they have

Mandelyn Royal:

no control over.

Rip Stalvey:

It's not so much that it is, they have no idea what poultry require, so there's some,

Mandelyn Royal:

most don't. Yeah.

Rip Stalvey:

It's, it is at least down here that I see that a lot. And that's where some of the shortages came in previously down here. They just didn't know enough. To know what they needed to plan for. I'll just leave it that way.

Mandelyn Royal:

There's a lot of consideration and at the end of the day, chicken math means you have stuff alive that you have to take care of. Please do it with a plan. Yes.

John Gunterman:

And do it ethically and responsibly. Absolutely.

Mandelyn Royal:

It would kind

John Gunterman:

heartbreaking to have a he, in the freezer or in the soup pot, and she only yields maybe a pound of meat because she hasn't reached that tipping point on the feed conversion ratio yet, where you're actually getting more out than you put in the equation just because you can't afford to feed'em. And you've gotta start, thinning down your flock.

Mandelyn Royal:

See, and that was part of my progression too, when I was still trying to have a diverse flock and when I was still trying to have a couple different breeds going and then realizing I'm sitting on, 50 pellets and I need to start making some choices. That's when I started to see the value of monitoring growth rate and affecting my results from. Before I have the birds in front of me because it does suck when you have to eat a bird. That's not really worth eating. But then also they don't have much residual value as soon as they're grown up enough to see if it's breeding quality or not. Because what'll happen probably this season with this giant spring demand. By fall, once we're coming into winter, there's gonna be a bunch of free chickens floating around of people realizing the care level, the expense, the space. And they don't wanna do this all winter long.

John Gunterman:

Lugging feed and water out through the snow.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah. Bucket by bucket. No matter what bucket they're, those birds are gonna be relying on you. And as soon as people see that. That's when birds become available at more modest pricing than what Spring had.

John Gunterman:

Sure. That's when you start becoming more willing to spend a reasonable price for a dozen eggs.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah. Yeah.

Rip Stalvey:

When you start seeing chickens being posted frequently on Facebook marketplace, you know somebody's getting overcrowded.

John Gunterman:

Yeah. And don't. Fall into that temptation'cause you think somebody's already invested in bringing'em into, laying age and they've already taken the financial hit. I can just bring them in and collect the eggs for the next however months till they hit the first molt. But with them, you're bringing in all the potentials for all the husbandry short. Comings of wherever they're coming from. Be it something as simple as poultry mites are as serious as, runaway coccidia, you just don't know. So in the fall when all these free birds start becoming available, remember your biosecurity protocols and stick to them. It's not worth infecting your flock.

Rip Stalvey:

Yeah. One, I'm gonna just throw this out there and one of the things we've done is we've focused primarily on baby chicks, but you need to plan ahead because those chicks are gonna grow up. So what are you gonna do? How much pen space are you gonna have to add to accommodate'em? What are you gonna do with all the extra males if you got straight run? Because those are real problems that you have to contend with, can you get the appropriate, the age appropriate feed that you need? All of those are things that you got to plan for

John Gunterman:

and, pen space can become a premium. Especially if, you have birds that haven't been particularly selected for temperament those juvenile males can get a bit rowdy, especially when they're in the company of males and females. The competitions can definitely get a little heated there. So having separate quarters for males versus females probably a good idea.

Mandelyn Royal:

I try to have that done by. Eight, 10 weeks old splitting for gender.

John Gunterman:

Oh. Soon as you can tell'em apart, split'em. Absolutely.'cause having males in with females will affect the female's growth rates in a negative fashion.

Mandelyn Royal:

This is true because they feel like they have to be on the run.'cause those boys are already getting after'em as soon as they have that inclination.

Rip Stalvey:

Makes a huge difference. It does.

John Gunterman:

So you're allowing them the opportunity to express their maximum genetic potential by separating the genders and, yeah, it should be an easy decision, especially when you're looking at the birds. Now you're just looking at just hens in a pan or in the yard and just roosters in a pan or in a yard, and you can very easily spot those differences and go, yes, you no, yes no. Yes, and walk around where you can't spray paint, or however you mark your birds at the end of the season.

Mandelyn Royal:

That's a lot easier if everyone in that group is the same age. Because I know it's tempting to merge your groups together, but if you do that, you need to have'em all labeled some way so that you know how old they are, specifically because right, if you walk into a pen and you have an age spread of a month, two months, three months. You're not gonna judge them equally or the same unless you know exactly who's who and you know exactly when that flock grows and how they grow to make an accurate assessment.

John Gunterman:

So if you're a little OCD about data collection and may you, we. Wing band everything. Weigh all your chicks every day for the first three weeks, and then monthly till harvest, you have an expected growth rate chart. So anybody who's, meeting or exceeding that, you have different options for them and you can really start sorting out early, like at the end of three weeks, I can already pretty much sort down to 50% of my hatch what I might wanna sell and what I might wanna keep if I were heading that direction.

Rip Stalvey:

And Madeline, you brought up a really good point that I want to just reiterate for just a minute, because when you have mixed age groups that you're evaluating at one time, it's so easy to get caught up. Let's say you've got birds that are three weeks apart in age. And. You pick up a bird and say, oh, this is a nice bird. So you put him in your keeper pen and you pick up another bird. This is, he's just not as good as that other bird. His bone structure is not as heavy as I would like to see. There's not enough body capacity as I would like to see, and we get so caught up in the moment, we forget to say, Hey. This bird is also three weeks younger than the other bird.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah. Did you just automatically, accidentally sort'em by edge? Yeah. That's what I was down to. If you're not careful, three weeks younger and your favorites were three weeks older,

John Gunterman:

right? I check the wing band and the leg band and my hatch log and go, okay, you are 14 weeks old, you weigh this much and you feel like this. I know what a 14 week gonna. 16 and an 18 week bird feel like more or less at this point.'cause I've been handling this breed so often and mandolin, you have that level of intimacy with your flock as well, and you just know what they should feel like at a certain age. But it's so easy to get so confused by that, especially if you have, multiple successive hatches. And very closely space after six weeks old.

Mandelyn Royal:

Now, I'm really not weighing that often. It's all by feel. I know the heft I'm looking for. I know once it's burned into your hands, you can fly through birds, but you do need to take that time to weigh them and learn that hand feel for that bloodline. And then if you add genetics from elsewhere, you have to start all over again on what those should feel like when.

Rip Stalvey:

Yep. Absolutely. It's all a bunch

Mandelyn Royal:

of brain teasers and I love it.

Rip Stalvey:

John de mandolin. I've got something here I'm gonna spring on. You guys, uhoh and I like to call it your story can shape your strategy, okay? And what I mean by that, based on personal experience dealing with chicken meth, and when it got outta hand, what'd you do? Differently than next time. What did you, what'd you take away from all that? Your big aha. Learning experience? Mandolin. I see the wheels are turning there.

Mandelyn Royal:

Oh, they are.

John Gunterman:

I downsized my incubators and brooders. I had the big GQF. Brewers and sportsmen, incubators and it was actually a downsize, but a huge upgrade for me to go with the hatching time because they do work so much better and they, I do have some physical challenges, but it also forced me to downsize my hatches if I know that I can handle. 30 chicks up to the first week in this brooder, and then they've got to come out and then I can handle 20 for the next week and then I can only handle 10 for the next week. It really forced me to look at my numbers and say, what can I realistically, ethically, comfortably maintain? Not stuff, everything and try to make, squeeze every last little bit that I can out of every run in my incubator.

Mandelyn Royal:

So once I made the choice of picking my breed and breeding them to the best of my ability, that's when I got really serious on the kind of chicken math I was employing because. Before that, I wasn't so worried about where I was gonna put birds, because I had enough friends who would take them. But these were all just, backyard layers. As soon as I knew I had females, I'm like, okay who needs some layers? And then all the friends put their hands up and say me, cool. But now that I'm from a completely different breeding angle to where I need the data that comes from what I'm hatching. I don't wanna let go of day old chicks, so that means I need a brooder plan, a grow pen plan to see what I need to see over the weeks, that I need to see that before I make any decisions. So my program's adapted and I limit myself at the incubator size. I cannot physically hatch more than 200 in a month. And that keeps me in line with my space. After that,

Rip Stalvey:

the incubator can definitely help regulate your,

Mandelyn Royal:

If you big of an incubator and you don't have the grow space, you're gonna be in a pickle quickly.

Rip Stalvey:

And, I'm like John, I had one of those big cabinet incubators. I had a benzene, not A-A-G-Q-U-F. But you could put 360 eggs in that sucker, and I knew that if I kept that incubator with my back, giving me problems and all that, yeah, I was asking for problems. So I bit the bullet and spent hatching time to more money than I'd like to, but I got an incubator that only would hold 120 eggs at one time. I could hatch 30 eggs every week. Okay. That was it. And I thought, I don't know if I can just stand looking at an incubator that much smaller, but surprisingly the hatching time incubator is the same size as the Rin Sea. So at least visually I've got that reassurance that I can do a lot. But knowing your limits is gonna be the toughest thing to overcome for you. I see. And then

Mandelyn Royal:

knowing where to place those limits.

Rip Stalvey:

Yes.

Mandelyn Royal:

I still have my sportsman cabinets and I have the 1500 and the 1550 hatcher so that I have to hatch separately. I knew I needed that rule to keep the incubation unit clean. Hatch separately, it makes a big difference. But with the egg sizes of my breed, I can't hit that advertise capacity of the sportsman 1500 cabinet because half of my trays are for way bigger eggs than the advertise. So I have to use two different egg tray sizes and that limits me. And then I love a staggered hatch. To where I can collect for a week, put those in, collect for a week, put those in. So I have three shelves in rotation and once they, I candle at day seven, everything good moves to the next shelf candle at day 14, everything good moves to the next shelf. And then from that top shelf, they move to the hatcher. And in my hatcher, I have baskets which take up a lot of space. But now I get to organize'em by the pen that came from, and I can check the pen performance. Through those baskets and know exactly which male has superior fertility, which pen has the most consistent chick size, and I can compare that to the setting size of the eggs that went in that space level. Lets me see a lot more data through the entire process. So downsizing I think would be a disservice for me, even though it'd keep me in better check. But upsizing, I don't have the pen space, so I don't have any plans to really change anything unless I also change the entire grow out chain. If I get a bigger incubator, I better have a second barn.

Rip Stalvey:

Your barn's big enough. You could make it a two story operation.

Mandelyn Royal:

My husband was looking at that yesterday and I was like so first we have to finish out the full loft. The exhaust fans are gonna have to go up there the roof needs done before we do anything expensive up there. And now it's turned into an$80,000 project to do that. And I'm not trying to be. I don't want a reason to spend that much, truth be told.

Rip Stalvey:

I can understand that. I can understand that

Mandelyn Royal:

$80,000 on top of everything else we've done in my commercial or what, that's a whole other choice. Because if you are gonna pony up that kind of money. You're doing it for very different reasons.

John Gunterman:

Yeah. So one additional brooder will end up costing you$80,000. That's the big takeaway here. Don't do it. Yeah. That's a

Mandelyn Royal:

lot to think about, but that's doing my due diligence on my chicken math and making sure,

Rip Stalvey:

We laugh and chuckle about that, but that's exactly how you have to approach this situation. This is exactly how you have to think about it.

John Gunterman:

I'm so glad we got around to that. Point specifically, yes, because that the type of whoops could get yourself into,

Mandelyn Royal:

I can take that barn to 3,200 square foot. Then if I do that, why? What? What was the whole point?

John Gunterman:

That's gonna make your buyer very happy, but is that self-sustainable? Or are you gonna burn yourself out? You

Mandelyn Royal:

know, I want that level of burden on my own shoulders. I just start saying, man, I say

Rip Stalvey:

this. I say this outta love and caring for you, but you would be your own worst enemy, I think right now if you did that. Yeah,

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah. I don't have help.

John Gunterman:

I've hire, seen, farm hire. You can do it. Don't,

Mandelyn Royal:

I don't think I want to.

John Gunterman:

It'll ruin you.

Mandelyn Royal:

It'll burn me out. And then what? I just go get some sex links. And have some eggs.

John Gunterman:

There

Rip Stalvey:

you go. There you go. Problem solved.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah. I don't wanna get burned out on breeding, so I think right where I'm at, it's perfect.

Rip Stalvey:

Breeding to me is that's my high that I get in poultry.

Mandelyn Royal:

When that next generation pans out exactly the way you planned it at a higher percentage than you've ever seen it. Oh, that's where you see the magic of it. Of, wow, I did that.

Rip Stalvey:

Yes. Success. No crooked toes. Whoops.

John Gunterman:

Do it again. A single crooked toe out of 60 eggs set. Yes.

Mandelyn Royal:

Oh yeah. When you reach those milestone goals, yes.

Rip Stalvey:

I gotta be honest with you, this recording has just flown by. We've covered a lot of territory. I hope we've answered a lot of folks' questions or at least dangled a red flag in front of'em for when they go to the or brought up or brought

Mandelyn Royal:

questions they didn't even know they had.

Rip Stalvey:

That's right. That's right. But I think to sum it up before we go. Spring chick season can be one of the most joyful parts of poultry keeping. It can also be one of the most frustrating if we don't plan ahead. If you have questions or you have problems, drop us a line at poultry keepers podcast.com. We'll be happy to answer that.

John Gunterman:

Definitely.

Rip Stalvey:

And if you've got a chick season story. About how chicken math affected you one positively or negatively. We'd love to hear about it. So drop us a note in the, in an email. Might even use it on the air sometimes. You never know about us.

Mandelyn Royal:

Or maybe it could be a topic in our podcast group on Facebook, and we could start a whole absolutely whole thread of everyone's chicken math stories.

Rip Stalvey:

Oh, that would be hilarious. I would love that. I can just see the title. Chicken chicken math Run amuck.

John Gunterman:

I don't dunno. We gotta work on that right now. I'm just so enjoying all the pictures people are posting. Yes,

Rip Stalvey:

they're great. They're keep'em coming folks. We enjoy'em.

John Gunterman:

Yeah. Yeah. I want to have Rip do a review of the breed so we don't have permission from, people who share their pictures to Yeah. Share their personal details. But I've seen some birds that I don't think I've ever would've had the opportunity to see if it weren't for that.

Mandelyn Royal:

That's the whole. You get to see stuff you don't have to bring home.

John Gunterman:

Yeah. I have some challenges with people.

Rip Stalvey:

But hey, before we go Madeline, do you have anything else, any other words of wisdom you want to share with our listeners?

Mandelyn Royal:

If you need to have a support buddy, go to the farm store with you to make sure you don't buy anything. Please take that person with you.

John Gunterman:

Good point. Have spare ceramic discs for your humidifier, for your incubator, or a spare humidifier for your incubator and a spare heating element. You never know

Mandelyn Royal:

spare parts that you bought in fall before they sold out for spring? Because right now it's like lawnmower season. Our grass cutting has to start this week. So what are all the mower supply places doing right now? They're actively selling out on the most common things, and you're gonna hit may needing blades and no one has'em. Same thing applies for your poultry stuff. Go into the season prepared just like headlights. You might need on hand.

John Gunterman:

You gotta go get new headlights and turn signals for your car before daylight savings time kicks in'cause everybody's gonna get caught short. Happens every year, folks.

Rip Stalvey:

I I so appreciate mandolin and John giving of their time and their energy and sharing their knowledge and experiences. They are just absolutely great to work with and I appreciate all our listeners. I have not shared this with Mandolin and John, but our podcast for the month of. March has officially crossed the 5,000 downloads per month threshold. What we had, yes, we had 5,233 downloads in March. That blows my mind.

Mandelyn Royal:

Mine too.

Rip Stalvey:

I think I might have to go out and have a piece of cake to celebrate or something. But we come a long way. I wish you guys

Mandelyn Royal:

were closer so we could go have a little dinner celebration. There

Rip Stalvey:

you go. That, that's another drawback living so far apart, isn't it? But

John Gunterman:

You guys always have Ohio.

Rip Stalvey:

We appreciate our listeners. We think the world of you. We hope you enjoy what we do and the effort we put into it. So until next time, next week, as a matter of fact. Keep enjoying your birds, keep watching them and take your buddy to the farm store the next time you go. So you don't buy chick. No, I'm kidding. But y'all have a good day, folks.

People on this episode

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John Gunterman

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Mandelyn Royal

Co-host
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Rip Stalvey

Co-host