Selecting the Cream of the Crop: Navigating Breed Selection Part 2

In this egg-citing episode of Poultry Nerds, we're continuing our deep dive into the crucial art and science of Breed Selection! Let Carey Blackmon and Jennifer Bryant guide you on this journey. 🐓🔍

🗣️ Join the Conversation: Have burning questions about breeder selection? Drop them in the comments or send us a message, and we might feature your query in our upcoming Q&A segment! 📲💬

Tune in now to feather your knowledge nest with the wisdom of breeder selection! 🎧🌱 Don't forget to share with your fellow poultry or livestock enthusiasts! 🤝🔊 #BreederSelectionMastery #FlockGoals #PodcastWisdom 🚜🐄🐔

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Transcript

Carey: 0:00

Welcome back, Poultry Nerds. We hope you've got your feathers ruffled and your clucks tuned in, because today we're continuing our dive into the fascinating world of breeder selection. Whether you're a seasoned poultry enthusiast or just starting out, this episode is packed with nuggets of wisdom that will have you squawking with delight. clucktastic journey into breeder selection on the Poultry Nerds podcast. It's time to wing it.

0:30

Okay. Bye. Bye bye.

Jennifer: 0:37

I mean, we're chicken people. We want to talk chicken. So just ask. People will give references. And if you want to show, you need to go to shows and talk to the other exhibitors and find the ones that are showing what you want to show. Now, if you go into a show and you want to raise Buff Cochins, say. They are pretty, pretty scarce, actually. So you may only find Black Cochins or White Cochins at a show. But that's okay, because we'll still help you find somebody who's breeding Buff Cochins, if that's what you want to breed.

Carey: 1:14

I mean, I've had an interest in chocolate orpingtons. Mm hmm. But I, I want primo chocolate orpingtons. And I've got, I've got somebody looking for those for me. And, you know. It may be six months before I find them. It may be next week,

Jennifer: 1:33

but those would be English.

Carey: 1:35

So yeah, they won't be dinosaurs.

Jennifer: 1:40

No, no, they won't be dinosaurs. They'll, they'll look, we call them Coachingtons. They look like Coachingtons in the high grass. You can't see their feet.

Carey: 1:51

Yeah, so, you know, Bantams has, to me, they have their place. You know, if I live somewhere where I don't have a lot of land, but I really love the vibrant, deep red of a Rhode Island Red, I've seen some really great looking Bantam Rhode Island Reds that looked like Miniature, Standard Bred Rhode Island Reds, which is what they're supposed to do. Some people don't like Bantams, but I think they have a place.

Jennifer: 2:27

Yeah, they do. They're great for 4 H'ers. They're smaller, you

Carey: 2:31

know. Great for 4 H'ers, young people. That's perfect for them because it's easier for them to handle. It's easier for them to chase them. When they, when they got to get them ready for a show.

Jennifer: 2:43

Every time we go to a show, David has to drag me out because I just keep looking at those little Bantam White Wyandottes. Oh, they're just so pretty. I just want to bring them home with me.

Carey: 2:58

I mean, why not? I

Jennifer: 3:01

don't have time for any more chickens. I don't have time. So chickens, I mean, that's another thing. If you want to breed, man, you have to have a lot of space and a lot of time. I mean, it takes a lot to breed them correctly.

Carey: 3:17

It does. And one thing that I have learned, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of space. And it also takes a lot of research. I've been very lucky in the fact that I've made some connections with some people that have been in it longer than I've been alive. Mm hmm. And I found some podcasts and some things where I got a crash course in breeding. And it's been very beneficial to me. But there's, there's so many things that, that are still out there. And that's one of the reasons why. I like talking about that kind of stuff because I feel like it's not talked about a lot. I also feel like if you, if you're new to the scene and you show up at a show, those people are cliquish. They know who belongs and they know who don't. And you start asking too many of the wrong questions and they're going to be like, who are you?

Jennifer: 4:20

You're the

Carey: 4:20

chicken police. Yeah, you're the chicken police or if you walk up and be like, Hey, I got a registry and that, that's your red chicken right there. I want to buy it. They're going to look at you and be like, no. And if you're wanting a great bloodline and you go to a show to go shopping, which is the right place to go, because you know, you can go to a show, find one with a ribbon. And that's. That's a good example of that standard. But you got to be tactful with that. Yeah. And

Jennifer: 4:56

a lot of times you have to get with that breeder before you even get to the show. So the last show that I went to, the one that you were talking about where she's sitting with the silver platter I had those birds sold a week before we went to the show and I purposely took those birds because I didn't want to bring them home because they were sold. So we went to the show and came home with zero birds.

Carey: 5:23

But you got some trophies.

Jennifer: 5:24

I did get some trophies and I got some points. Yes. I got a lot of pictures pictures look good pictures. Yes but there's a point where? That you you've got your birds close to where you want them Like I have my breeding pen set up already and and I know what's I mean, not a hundred percent, but I have a good idea and, and I'll set some birds aside to take to shows that I know that will do fine, but I can sell because I don't want to breed them in the future. Because as a general rule, I would never. As a general rule, I'm not gonna say never, as a general rule I would not take my breeders to a show. There are exceptions to that, but as a general rule I would not.

Carey: 6:13

So my mentor told me something that his mentor, who is Mr. Reese, told him. You don't take your blueprints to a show. And at first I was like, huh? But if you got that ideal bird that meets the standard that's really great. The coloring is perfect. The cones and the waddle are the way they're supposed to be. Don't take it to a show. You never know what could happen. If that's the only one you got and you take it and something happens, your breeding program is shut down for a long time.

Jennifer: 6:59

Well, when I met you at the Fort Payne show. There was a lot of empty cages there and I asked around, you know, what happened and he got stuck in traffic and the carbon monoxide filled up the back of his truck and killed all of his birds. Hmm. So stuff happens.

Carey: 7:16

Yeah. That, that, that could be a whole nother episode where we talk about transporting poultry to shows. And some things to look out for when, when you do decide to go to those shows and talk to people, obviously it's good to know the lingo. Yes. And you know, it can be confusing. What is a cockerel? What is a cock bird? What is a rooster? When is it a hen? When is it a pullet? What is straight run? You know, what, what is talk about some of that? When, what's the difference between a cockerel, a cock bird, and a rooster?

Jennifer: 7:58

Well, so a cockerel is under a year by show standard. Okay. And on a show card, he will have a K on it. A cock bird would be over a year and this is on your. This is just up to you to be honest on how old these birds are. I mean, the only way you can really tell would be spurs. And that might give you a good idea of how old a bird is, but you should keep records. But it's on you to be honest when you get to the show and fill out the cards and stuff. But cockerel will be under a year, a male under a year designated by a K. A cock bird would be over a year with a C. And we generally refer to'em as roosters on Facebook, social media, because Cockrell and Cockbird might get you Facebook

Carey: 8:53

policed. I was say you might find yourself in Facebook jail with that,

Jennifer: 8:57

but Rooster is not a technical term. It's, it's just lingo. And then pullet would be a young female. Who has who is under a year, right? Right, and under a year she's a P on a show card. And then you have a hen who's over a year. And so, and then you have chicks. Straight run is just a mix of chicks. You don't know if you've got males or females. There some people that say they can vent sex. I am sure that there are a handful of people who can do it. I don't know how. I don't want to know how to do it on a chick because you can damage them. I'm not interested enough at that age to know what they are anyway. And then if you go to buy birds, you can also buy what's called a started bullet or a started cockerel, and those are just old enough to be sexed correctly. So, it really just depends on your breed. The Orpingtons, I can sex them around eight ish weeks, accurately. The Cochins, sometimes you can sex them in the brooder but accurately, probably getting on to about the same, about six to eight weeks,

Carey: 10:27

so. The you know, a lot of times people will say, oh, I only want hens. Wow. If you only want hens, then you're, you're not going to get a chick straight out of the incubator. I would, I would guess that would be very hard.

Jennifer: 10:49

Now you can do an autosexing breed like leg bars are autosexing. You're doing a cross, right, with the Delaware's? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So you can create an autosexing patch by using sex linked traits.

Carey: 11:05

Yeah, that's, that's something that is a very interesting topic to me is the sex linked traits. And, and I know that in practically everything else, color is not a sex linked trait. But scientific studies show that it is in poultry. It is. And that's, I fit, I plan on tapping into that market where I'm at. People that, you know, I have a lot of inner city area where I'm at, where they can have up to six hens and no roosters or violate city ordinance. So I'm, I'm planning on, on working towards that.

Jennifer: 11:51

My chickens can't be auto hatched, auto sexed. I mean but my Welsh Harlequins are sexable at hatch. My ducks. Really? So when they're born, hatched, when they're hatched, the bill is pink on a girl and black on a boy. No. Three days. And then after that, no.

Carey: 12:18

So with that, you could just get some, get some blue zippy ties.

Jennifer: 12:22

You cannot put a zip tie on a duck. It just won't stay.

Carey: 12:26

They won't stay around their

Jennifer: 12:26

ankle? No, because their little feet, they, they just shrivel up their little feet and it just slides right off. So you have to brood them separately. You have to create two brooders. Can't even toe punch them? Yeah, you can, but I won't do that. So I don't show them. So I mean, if I'm just keeping them, I don't really care and we just eat the extra Drake. So it didn't really matter. But now if I've got somebody that's wanting to buy them, then at the next hatch I'll pull theirs out. And leave them in a separate brooder. But yeah, it's only for like three days, like the fourth or fifth day. They're the same color. It's the, it's the wickedest thing.

Carey: 13:09

That's really neat though, that it's pink, pink and

Jennifer: 13:12

black. Well, and it's funny because when they're adults, the males are olive colored and the females, I say black, but they're not really, it's kind of like a dark charcoal color with a black bean. So none of them have pink bills when they're done.

Carey: 13:33

Let me ask you this. What is, how do you feel about starting? What, what, what would you rather, Or what would you recommend to somebody, whether they do hatching eggs, or started chicks, or started, some kind of started bird, or something like that? What would you, what would you suggest?

Jennifer: 13:54

I would think that it would be based on what, what you're after. So if you are just wanting to hatch some birds, and you're happy with whatever you're going to get, go hatching eggs. Because you're going to That's going to be your most inexpensive route with upfront cost, but your highest risk because you can't guarantee what people are sending you. You can't guarantee how they're treated in shipping and you just don't know. And so then you could have chicks sent to you, but you will likely get straight run unless you have an auto sexing breed. And then you have live birds to start with. And in a lot of cases that actually is the most budget friendly to get started because you could spend, and I have done it,$300 on hatching eggs, trying to get my coaching started and got zero to hatch. And I ended up, you know, that was,$300 wasted actually twice and Ended up buying a trio a started trio. So I got two four month old Pullets and a Cockerel shipped to me in the mail So and that only cost$475 with shipping But really that was cheaper than two sets of$300 hatching

Carey: 15:30

eggs Yeah. I mean that in that situation, it's a essentially less than$500 versus$600 and your results were the same. Exactly. See, for me, I mean, everybody, everybody's like, Oh, I can hatch some eggs. And I mean, it is, it is really cool, but chicken math is a thing. And, you know, I, I'm not gonna, I don't want to put$300 eggs in a$50 incubator. But you see a lot of people in a lot of the groups talking about getting a cheap incubator and but they want wonderful hatching eggs. I will say that there was one point in time before I got my nice incubators that I bought what everybody has at a 360, you know, it's a lot of people talk about how amazing it is. They don't talk about how atrocious regulating humidity is or anything like that because they're the ones that dry hatch. But I got this bought one brand new and I wanted a specific type of chicken from a specific breeder. And he's extremely proud of his eggs, but his bloodline is good and he knows it and people pay, you know, when, when I said, Hey man, I won't, I want a dozen hatching hatching eggs, he said, okay, well, you know, my price you're going to have to pay that to get put on the list. But it may be about five or six months.

Jennifer: 17:18

Well, I have one of my mentors in the Orpington world, you know, him his wait list is three, four or five years.

Carey: 17:27

And I mean, you know, when you think, okay, am I going to get some Orpingtons? Am I going to wait three to four years? That seems excessive, but when I started, when I got back into poultry and I got some really nice looking Rhode Island Reds they, they weren't quite to standard. And when I talked to a breeder and showed them what I had, we talked about the things that needed to be worked through. I had really great looking birds, but I also had a six to seven year project. Mhm. Of hatching every single egg that I could and quite possibly culling over half to get the characteristics of a Standard Bred Rhode Island Red with six to seven years in mind for that. If I go back and I look, you know, your, your breeder mentor person for those. Three to four years doesn't seem

Jennifer: 18:34

that bad. No, because you're feeding birds, you're housing birds, you're waiting on birds, you're frustrated with birds, you're not getting what you want, and they're still eating the whole time. You're trying to get where you want to be, and, or you could just spend a few more hundred dollars and get what you want to start with.

Carey: 18:54

Yeah, because you know, when you're, when you're When you've got a bird that's not standard bred and you're trying to get that, that bloodline there, you know, you, you're weighing them at four weeks, eight weeks, 16 weeks. And, you know, you're, you're going to be five, six months before, you know, if it's a cull or not, unless you're able to find somebody that breeds to that standard, that actually has the time to tell you at eight weeks, if the bird weighs less than this, it's never going to make standard weight. So you need to go ahead and call it.

Jennifer: 19:37

So now you're talking about mentors and I have two, one for the Orpingtons and one for the Cochins. And. And one of them, he doesn't charge me, but the other one I pay for his knowledge and, the, to pay for his knowledge has saved me so much money in selection and feed and time. and I really feel like he took five years off of my breeding program because. Just simple things. He told me to look for and I did and I go to the shows and you've seen what happened when I went to the shows and all I did was put what he told me to do into place. So, and they were not his birds. I did not buy the birds from him. So,

Carey: 20:27

and see, I have a mentor in the poultry and he, he has been amazing and telling me exactly what to look for. You know, and it took a while to find that person and to get that relationship. And, you know, now this, this person's like family to me and he told me, you know, Hey, at this many weeks, it should be, it should weigh between here and here. And if it doesn't, it's probably not going to be when you want to keep when it's here, it should do this. At this particular age, you should, the feathering should start looking like this. If not, if you see too much black or whatever in this particular location, then that's probably not going to be one for you. And like you said, that's, that is not an education that you can get too many places, number one. And it's extremely valuable information. Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released and they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning and keep it eggciting. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.