So I hear that you have received some questions that we need to answer today. Yeah. And I figured since we're gonna do an episode called 10 Things You Don't Wanna Mess Up. When you're dealing with chicks, since you know everybody's dealing with chicks 'cause it's chick season. And breeding season and all that good stuff. So the other day I was on my way to, or from a consultation and I get this text message from a friend of mine that I hadn't talked to in quite a while. We used to work at the same school and I transferred to a different one says, so this afternoon we're driving home from Dollywood and we just got four chickens at the beginning of this week, and so we are listening to a podcast about taking care of chickens. I said, this voice is so familiar. This really sounds like Carrie. I go to looking and I'm like, sure enough, it is your podcast for beginners raising chickens, AKA us so I need a favor. And, we went on and we had a conversation and so she comes up, I'm like hey look, I'll, I would love to be able to answer some of the hoop troops. She's on Instagram as hooper troops 'cause she's got a basketball team at home. And so she wanted to know some questions 'cause they're looking at coops for these chicks as they grow up and everything else. And she said, does each chick need its own laying spot inside of the coop? And, they will all find a spot to lay on the ground, you know that. But I think what she was talking about is nesting box. And I told her, I was like, no, because you, if you have anywhere from six to 10 hens, even if they had three or four laying boxes, more often than not, they're all gonna use the same one. Yeah. And then she said, what treats can I let my kids give the chickens? And I started like banging my head. I was like, no. And I told her, I said, treats are. Not really the best thing for them to give very often. And I know kids like to give treats often 'cause they like to get 'em often. So you know, maybe let the kids feed them. What would you suggest? Maybe we could take a page outta Blaze Baxter's. Podcast and maybe they could grow some duckweed to give 'em for treats. Now that would be a good idea. Best, that would be something that's natural. And somebody gives 'em thyme. I was gonna say herbs, oregano time. Yeah. Any, anything like that. That's good for their immune system and all that stuff. So that would work. Strawberry tops. Yeah. Marigold leaves. Yeah. I think I would, everybody like goes towards the mealworms and stuff, but those are pretty high in calcium and protein and fat. I think I would, I was gonna say mil worms are like protein, fat, and calcium. And Yeah. Or millet, nothing else. Grout gro groats, oat groats. They would probably like those. Mine do. Yeah. Sprouts. My buttons like alfalfa sprouts. Yeah. And that's something you can make fodder. That'd be another project the kids would probably like. Is to get a. Like one of those greenhouse starter kits that you can sit in a window seal or something. Put that in there, take it outside, give it to 'em. That'd be healthy. I have this envisionment of a chia pet. They could just trim the hair on the, remember when we were kids and chia pets, do they still have those? I don't know if those still exist. I'm gonna look on Amazon and see, because you know how those things just kept growing and kept growing? Yeah. Yeah. So if you got you a big chia pet, you could put it in with your chicks. They would wear that thing out big time, and then you just take it out and smear some more of the stuff on it and water it and let it grow again. Put it in with the next batch of chicks. It was just terrible tars, wasn't it like partially or something? That was beyond two days ago, so I don't know. I can't remember. But yeah, I mean you could just grow. Anything like that, and you can still to this day, buy chia pet seeds. And they're really cheap, actually. Really? I had to go to Amazon to look. They fully grow in one to two weeks. And they're chia seed packs. Maybe chia is a plant, is chia plant and I don't know about it. No chia seeds is a plant like. People go to the store and buy chia seeds to eat because of their nutritional value. Oh. So yeah, I don't eat that Healthy. Yeah. Me neither. I have a monster in Zaxby's, so that's not exactly healthy, but was this season I live on protein shakes. But I thought that was really good. The next question she had is at what age do they no longer need the heater? And I told her that's not really an age thing. It's more of a bird specific and climate thing. Because they need, if they're fully feathered and not in a windy, like somewhere to block all the wind, as long as it's over 40 degrees, they're good. And I say that and people will be like, oh, it's 70 degrees during the day. That's not what I'm talking about. If you're gonna put 'em outside right now, make sure it's over 40 degrees at night. And make sure they can get in somewhere with some kind of bedding that is out of the wind. But I wouldn't cut it off cold Turkey. Too much I have. And another one was, I see supplements for the water. Do I need those? And you know that, that's a personal thing. Some people don't. Me personally, I'm gonna say no because I have actually taken multiple different kinds of vit, min, pro chick, all kinds of chick powders, the electro this, and all that kind of stuff that comes in a powder form. And put it just in a plain Jane generic bottle of water. I'll take a few drinks, put some in there, and shake it like a salt shaker for a while, and then just set it down and, with, so depending on what it was with, within an hour or so one of 'em lasted about a day and a half, and all of the stuff had come outta suspension. If you're giving your birds fresh water every day, if they don't drink it all and you clean out their water they went probably half the vitamins that you paid for. So it's a waste. If you mix it in with their feed, it's measurable, when they eat it da. So that's how I look at that. I told her if she wanted to get some of the ones that were liquid, then that would be more effective. It is what it is. And she also had, apparently they got one chick because their daughter wanted a chick and they got one and it's two to three weeks older than the other chicks. And that chick has taken on like a mama role to the younger chicks. She'll let 'em get under 'em under her and stuff like that. And she said, is that bad? Do I need to separate? I was like, honey, it sounds to me like you got a good hand that's gonna be real good when she goes broody and take care of chicks. I would not separate it 'cause, being a rookie chicken tender. Couldn't make mistakes, mother nature don't screw up a whole lot. She sends me this picture of her daughter with the older chicken on her shoulder, like standing in the living room looks neat. Yeah. Was that all her questions? Yeah. If you guys have questions and you would like us to answer them, then just send them to us and we will start answering them live on the show for everybody to hear. We'll start a new segment. Yeah that's a good thing. Just give us questions and we'll answer 'em and you listen and find it because. There's not, I don't think there's a single question out there that's not wondered. By many people. A lot of people don't ask them because they don't wanna feel stupid or look stupid or whatever. It ain't like we're gonna call you out on it. We won't even tell people your name. Yeah. I just like the kids listened to this and they really enjoyed the podcast. I was like, is it okay with you if I give a shout out? I don't want actually say their actual names 'cause they're kids. But they'll know by me saying who her mom is, who their mom is. Oh yeah. Okay. Alright, you ready to jump into today's show? 10 things. You Don't want to Mess up With Your Chickens, but You will. That's the PG 13 version. And I mean you probably will because we all do we, we all do. We all make mistakes and we all screw up from time to time. All right, so mistake number one, impulse buying. Go to the feed store. They're chirping. I was gonna say don't go to the feed store. Yeah, no, I never go there because you like a tractor supply. This time of year is about the only time of the year where they have an absolutely amazing marketing plan. And it's that you can one the sliding doors open, the chicks are positioned in the store somewhere where you hear that chirping. And the kids hear it. Who doesn't love the sound of freshly hatched chicks? So you don't want to impulse buy because you probably don't have all the stuff, all the knowledge, and you need to be able to take care of 'em. And this time of year, they are not Easter presents. So please do not buy them thinking that you can turn them loose later as Easter presents for your kids. Yes, people do that. You do need to know what your codes are at your house. If you live in an HOA, if you live in an apartment if you live in the city, you have to know what your codes are. Do you have proper housing for the birds once they are out of the brooder and. Do you know what a meat bird is? Because here in about two or three months, you're gonna start seeing all the posts on social media. Hey, what is this? And it'll be a Cornish cross, or it'll be a broad breasted. White Turkey. Yeah. Which are meat birds. They're gonna be like why is my white bird huge in losing feathers? See this picture right here? These are meat birds. So if you go, don't buy the yellow fluffy ones. If you're gonna impulse buy, stay away from them. And, once again, I'm not knocking tractor supply. 'cause we like tractor Supply. Jennifer knows the people that pretty high up in the company. But a lot of times the person that is unboxing those chicks is not the highest person on the totem pole. That knows what they are. And they make mistakes. And just because it says that you got a golden comet. 'cause that's what was in that, a lot of times I'll keep 'em in the stock tanks. It might not be what you got. So don't be upset about that because to me, if it really mattered the breed that you got, you should have got it from a breeder. Not an impulse buy, so it's a marketing tool. They all get us so that you have to buy the feed and all the contraptions that go with them. Yeah. So that's what it is. And that's why they mark 'em down to a dollar or whatever they do. I haven't bought any chicks I don't know that I've ever bought chicks at Tractor Supply. I did get my ducks from the co-op years ago when I had mallards, but. I think that was it. Alright, onto the next one, your brooder setup. So you do unpause by and you come home and you need to be able to set up your brooder. This is actually, if you guys are listening to us, we actually have a slideshow, so you can see that on YouTube. This is an actual picture of my birds, and right when I snapped it, right before I snapped it, they decided to poop right there on the cord. So it's as authentic as it comes, but your idea here is to keep them warm and dry. So I have gone through the gamut of everything you can use as bedding in a brooder and I have settled on stall pellets. I have been using them for probably two years now, and I had can find no fault with them. They're absolutely perfect as far as setting up brooders are concerned. You would find them in the horse section at Tractor Supply or the co-op or Rural King or whatever. They're seven or $8 for a bag of them. You only need maybe an inch worth in the bottom of the brooder, and it's just compressed sawdust. And so when it gets wet, it expands, it absorbs the moisture, it expands and. If you use one of those little things that's designed for a garden that's got like the three forks on it for you to rake around when you're planting plants or whatever, if you use one of those and move them around every so often. You'll get the un wet ones to come up to the top and it really refreshens it and makes it to where there's no smell able. If that's a word, ammonia. So mine, I wait a little bit longer probably than you do, it sounds and mine turn into a pancake underneath the water dish. And I just take a big putty knife and take 'em out, put 'em in a bucket, and then stir 'em up. So you never actually have to change 'em. Of course mine only stay in there for a couple weeks, but you don't change 'em so much as you stir it up. I was gonna say, I don't change mine at all. You just stir it up. They're gonna be in there two to three weeks, whether it's quail or chickens. You just stirred up to keep it fresh or, let it turn into a cake. Either way, you're not really gonna have an issue. If you're using storage tubs like she and I both use for a lot of it, literally those things, you can take them to the compost pile when you're done. Flip 'em upside down, set it on the pile. Give it the old, pick it up and you're done. Yep. Hit it with a hose pipe, spray it with some sanitizer. Your brood is clean and ready for more. Yeah, exactly. The other thing I want you to notice in this picture is the brooder plate. You'll notice that it is crooked, and I do that on purpose. The brooder plate is meant to touch. Them like a mother hen would. So they can go underneath of it to hide, to get warm. They, it heats them by touch. There seems to be some misconceptions about brooder plates. You cannot put them outside on the cold dirt. It will not work that way. You can't put them on cold concrete. It doesn't work like that. It has to be in a reasonably temperate room. Out of a draft and only needs to be heating the birds by touching them and by tilting it like this, then the bird can decide. You do, I wanna, wants to get way up in there where it's dark and get cozy or not. I will say this guys Jennifer does things backwards because this brooder plate in my opinion, is incorrectly installed. The power cord should be at the back. Because now it is going to hang in front along everything else, and it's gonna get tons of poop on it. And yes, I wash my brooder plates off. And get the poop off power cords. 'cause it drives me nuts and I have to put 'em in the back. But yeah. Okay. So get really upset then because not only is my power cord coming out the front, it is then fished through the feeder and comes out through the feeder and plugs into the search protector. But hey, you know what? You hatch out thousands every week, so what works? Works? Yep. I ain't saying it's wrong. I'm just saying, in my opinion, I feel like the power cord should be at the back or at least up against one of the walls. Then I couldn't fish it through the feeder. Okay, so now we got your birds set up. Now let's talk about when you put 'em outside, when they're finally to go outside. So this is, that's a Delaware, I don't know. This is a stock picture. This isn't my verge this because I don't have any tra I was gonna say tractor supply coops, but we won't say that. We'll say prebuilt. Kit Coops, I was gonna say this is like a baby prebuilt coop. Yes. That is available. One of the most popular places that you can get these for a few hundred bucks. Is there. But you can order 'em from Amazon or 50 million other places. So if it says four to eight chickens I would lean towards four to eight Bantam silky type things. I wouldn't try to put one of ours in there. Yeah. If it says four to eight, that means like four Rhode Island reds. Two, maybe three 10 pound Orpingtons. You could get closer to that six or eight mark with a silky or some small game foul that are like four and a half, five pounds. Ban 'em. Now, if you want to hit that eight number, you can put some moderns in there. You probably put 12 moderns in there. Now, if this was just for sleeping, it would be okay, but we're talking about if you were gonna keep 'em in there 24 7. No, they, this is not big enough for four to eight birds. But if they're just going in there to go to bed then I think that would be fine. Good luck getting them in there. But you need to decide how you're gonna coop 'em, how much space that you have. And once you add water and feed in there, you know that takes up floor space of another chicken. Yeah. So make sure that you size your coop according to how many chickens you get, because chicken math is real and you'll have to temper yourself and. By the appropriate sized housing for them. Yeah. If you measure the number of chickens you have more accurately by the amount of feed that you go through on a monthly basis. And not by actual number. That pen would be too small. Yeah. Okay. Predator protection. This is going to vary depending on where you live. I personally don't have a predator issue because I have dogs, so mine are fine. But what is pictured here is chicken wire. If you want to buy a chicken wire you might as well just throw the money out the car window. And that would be how much I think it's worth. Okay, so I have actually found a good use for chicken wire, no tomato plants. So if you take the cattle feedlot panels. And build the walls of your chicken pen out of that, or build the walls of your chicken pen out a two by four wire. And then you go back with a hog ring and put this onto that. It will keep the little chicks from going out and the two by four wire or the. Cattle feedlot panels should be big enough to keep whatever predator out. Oh, gotcha. But that stuff by itself, the only thing it's good for is to what it up and sell it for scrap. Yep. So basically chicken wire is to hold chickens. They're the only things that can't seem to go through it, and it holds 'em really still so that other things can get in there and eat them. So don't buy chicken wire. What you want is hardware cloth. Yeah. So the difference when you look at 'em is chicken wires like an octagon and you can actually cut it with a pair of Timo scissors, hardware cloth done that before. Hardware cloth is little squares. Typically you're gonna see half inch hardware cloth, and. You'll know that you have the right stuff after you've used the cutters on it for about 10 minutes and your cussing hardware. Cloth, then you know that you have the right stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And your hands are chewed up. And you wish that it was never invented. Now, I will say this, I found this magical tool that was pointed out to me by a friend of mine that you put a drill battery on it. And it snips and it looks like a drill. And you just run it right up through it and it cuts it like a scissor cutting Christmas wrapper paper. It's amazing. Yep. I love those things. So if you're going to use a lot of hardware cloth, like more than one roll. Yeah. That thing is it's about $25 and it goes in your drill. And if you're gonna use more than three rolls, you need to buy a staple gun. Yeah. And a, an air stapler or battery stapler is really handy when you're trying to make your own cages. That works really well. And aug rings, that works really good for mending the wire and all kinds of stuff like that. All right, so animals are prone to dig in to places. Like rats are really good about it. Possums will come in. Cats just you have to know what your predators are and if you are not sure what your predators are, maybe ask your neighbors asking a local group or put out a camera at night and just see what's wandering around in your yard at night. You might be shocked actually. I told Lucy, my, one of my LGDs, that if she did not keep the rats out of my part of my yard, that I was gonna fire her because this time of year you should be getting eggs outta everything and there's a certain group of birds, nothing. And I'm investigating checking it out. I look in the pen and there's holes about the size of a quarter all in it. Now, Lucy tried to plea her case with, her not being able to get inside the pen, and she was sorry, but Hey, your job is to protect them. She said, let 'em out. I don't know, but I do have a plan for the nieces. I feed my dogs too good and too much. Because. They won't eat 'em. Yeah, if you just have quarter size holes, you just have mice, I have rats. You can put your whole arm down inside of those. That's a whole different ballgame. So netting. Netting is what you get to put up top for aerial predators like hawks and stuff. There are essentially two kinds that I am firsthand knowledge of. You have the $20 kind off of Amazon. If you would like to stay married, I highly suggest that you don't buy the $20 kind. And all it seems to be good for is collecting dead bodies of sparrows. That seems to be what it's good for. What you want to get is the rope. Mine came from pen and hatch. I'm sure there are other places to get it. It is not cheap and it is not light, but it will last you a really long time in years. Comparatively speaking, it's not cheap, we're not talking about a thousand dollars either, folks, like a hundred dollars. Yeah, I bought some to do. I have two pens that are, one's 32 by 32, and the other one's 32 by 40. And I bought one big enough to where I could cover both with it. And I wanna say it was like a hundred, 115 bucks. But like this crap was some pretty substantial twine making up this net. And it worked really well. What I did to make it. Stand up was, I got a piece of inch and a half PVC and put a T at the top, cut two feet off the bottom. So now I had a eight foot piece of pipe and I stuck them on the sides of the t. I used that, stood it up after, and then I, pulled 'em straight on the post and stapled it to the post. I had no problems. None at all. Mine and the Turkey pen is 50 feet by 50 feet, so it did take a really big heavy piece of that netting and the blue barrels, the, the water barrels 50 gallon. Barrels, we cut the top off. It might've been the bottom, I don't know. But you end up with what looks like a dinner plate with an inch slip or something. We put a four by four post in the middle of the Turkey run. I, it's a square, so I hate to say run, but, and then we just put that blue plate on top of it and then draped the. Netting from that point out to each to the fence. Yeah. And connected. I took, I just draped it over and I got a roll of yellow rope, like half inch rope from Harbor Freight for 20 bucks. For 300 feet or something, or some stuff. Oh yeah. Like The nylon type? Yes, the nylon stuff. Yeah. And I just stood there and threaded it, like I sewed it to the. To the fence all the way around. Oh, you got really fancy with yours. Yep. And the good thing about the netting, the rope netting, not the divorce attorney netting, is if you get a hole in it, which you will my doors like to put holes in them, is you can just take a carabiner and hook it back together. It won't run like a pair of. Pantyhose or something, it will just make a hole. So you can just take a carabiner and clip it back together and it's fine. Or zip tie. Or zip tie. Yes. That's what's holding mine to the fence. Yeah, it is heavy though, so you would probably need some help to pull it. Like one, once I got it all around I called my wife and I was like, Hey, I need your help. She said, I don't know crap about building. What you're building. I said, no, I just, I can't be in two places at once and I just need you to stand this thing up. So I got her to hold the pole standing up while I went around and attached it. And it hadn't moved. We hadn't blow it down. I didn't put the pipe in the ground. Friction's the only thing holding it in place. You can do a lot of stuff with zip ties and carabiners. Yes. All right. Next step is getting the wrong feed it for whatever reason, and I do not know where this started, and I would like to slap somebody, is why people think they need to move to a layer feed at 16 weeks. Do you have any idea where that started? Because. Somebody thinks that all chickens start laying at 16 weeks. Yeah, I've never owned that chicken. Me neither. But what you need to do is wait until you actually see those little white butt nuggets in where the chickens are before you give them layer feet. So I know you're the, and I let layer feed when they actually lay. Yeah. So I know you're the nutrition guy, but my simplistic way of doing this is you give 'em starter when they're starting growing, or developer when they're growing and layer in when they're laying and all flock for the rest of the time. Holy cow. So you start 'em with starter concepts and while they're growing. You give them a grower. And while they're developing, you give 'em a developer and then laying, you give 'em a layer. Okay. That's cool. And when they stop laying and they go like to molting or in the winter or whatever, I switch 'em off to an all off lock. That makes sense. Oh, okay. Good. I'm just, just verifying with you, this farm crap is not that hard. No. It's almost like it's not. Now there are some YouTube personalities that want you to think that it's hard, but I've met a lot of farmers in my life and I met a lot of modern day farmers. And I'm gonna tell you right now, a rocket scientist is something you do not have to be one. Otherwise, some of 'em would be pretty screwed. So keep it simple. Okay. So this is an often overlooked concept is to decide why are you getting chickens? Are they gonna be pets? Are they gonna be treated like livestock? Are you just getting 'em to eat bugs? Show birds would be another reason. You have to decide for yourself why you're getting them, and there's an important step here. We're gonna talk about it in the next slide, but you have to decide this at this point, and also your level of maintenance. So if you're just getting bug control, that would probably be the lowest maintenance. And if you're going to do birds for show, that would be the highest maintenance. Those are the ones you give a bath. Blow dry their feathers. Give 'em hugs. And the livestock would be because we are getting 'em, because we're gonna eat 'em, we're gonna eat the eggs. We, they have a purpose. They have to earn their keep on the property. That doesn't mean you mistreat them, it just means that they have a purpose. And if you're getting 'em for pets, then their purpose is to make you happy only. And that's fine too. There's no judgment here. We're just, you have to determine your purpose for getting them, and now we're gonna explain why. Not in this slide, in the next slide, but we're leading up to it. So bias, man, that looks like a green legged hatch, that it just has a whole lot of sickness. Okay, it's a stock photo. It's not one of our birds. I found it. So biosecurity. Now when you go to get your birds, if you go to auctions, swaps, buy birds from your neighbor there's a good chance that you are bringing in sickness and. Also all the medications that they may have given those birds at the same time. I know a lady up north and it's probably been three years ago now. She had gotten Morans from me when I was raising Morans and she was doing so well and she went to her local auction and brought home pigeons. And she brought home mic. I know how do you go from pi morons to pigeons? It was an impulse buy, and she brought home mycoplasma and she lost everything. So you're not just buying the bird, you're buying every in piece of the environment it comes with, and the bird is stressed. That's gonna exhibit more illness Now, swaps would be a similar situation. Flea markets, those kinds of things. Same concept. And then if you're buying birds from, I don't if I don't care if you paid $2,000 for a bird, you are still buying the environment. You're still buying any illness. Any medication that's been given to that bird are you allergic to medications? And that bird has received it? It's possible. You have to think about these things. And then of course, are they going to get the rest of your flock sick and you end up with nothing because you had to coal everything and you can't have anything for up to a year because you have to wait for everything to die off in your dirt. So you really need to ask yourself. Do you want to take that risk? When you do that, and then egg production, not all birds are good layers. My orpingtons are horrible layers because they're standard bread. They're not utility stock. If you bought utility stock, orpingtons, they probably would lay an egg a day. But my big, my biggins, they do not. So if eggs are important to you, then you need to buy the appropriate bird. Those would be. Production birds utility birds. I had a guy that tried to buy some of my Rhode Island reds for a couple years and he wanted them to go with his egg laying flock so they would have a rooster to watch over 'em and also so they could hatch out more. I said, you don't want my reds? And he said, man, your reds are beautiful. They're the prettiest reds I've seen, so on and so forth, which they are, show birds. And I said, look, my birds are standard Rhode Island reds. A standard bird is not a production bird. That production bird that gives you five to seven eggs a week is what it is been bred for That. A show bird has been bred for the show and if you get two, three eggs out of them things a week, some of 'em you're doing pretty good. So some, that's why you don't wanna mix the two if. Eggs is your primary goal. I got an email just last week. Somebody had be Orpingtons and she wanted one of my males to go over 'em. And I said what breeder did you get your orpingtons from? And she said, oh, I just got 'em at Tractor Supply. And I said my Orpington males would literally squish your birds. So no, I'm not selling them to you. Because they're just too big. But anyway, so you have to know that bantams, if you're going to do bantams and large foul, you're gonna have to separate them. Unless you free range, then you might be able to keep 'em together. If you get some really docile, large foul a breast, an orpington. A coaching, something like that. Or a red. Then they might be okay with some runts running around, but there's some with enough space. As long as they got enough space. Yeah. Which a lot of birds can cohabitate. If you have enough space. They're like people. People that don't really get along with each other. They can cohabitate in the same space if there's enough of it. But if you gotta be in the kitchen with everybody all the time to watch TV and you can't spread out, you're gonna have some trouble. Yep. It's called a pecking order for a reason, and they will find it. Okay. And now ventilation. Some people take predator control to a whole level. I saw a picture. Maybe a year ago, and it looked like a coffin, like it was solid wood that she locked him up into every night. And I showed a picture of it to David and he's that's a coffin. And I was like, no, this is a coop. And so anyway, they need fresh air. They all, birds are going to tolerate cold better than heat. Now the extreme north. And there that's different. We're just talking about in general here because we'll get hate mail. But birds in general, like the cooler weather more so than the heat stress. That's why in the summertime they'll dig down and get in that dirt and they're not doing it because they have. Mights, they're doing it because it's cooler. I'm a huge fan of the ventilation now. I think if you're gonna have chicks in the same pen, you know that bottom two foot of that pen needs to be really solid. Something. Don't get the cheap hardware cloth. Get the good stuff that's like 14, 16 gauge something along those lines. But they need tons of ventilation. And if you can smell the, if you can smell the ammonia, then two things is happening. Number one, you're feeding them way too much protein. And number two, you're 10 times the toxicity level. What a chicken should have if you can smell it with your bare nose. So yeah. All right. Next step. You have to decide what you're gonna do with illness. Are you, if you're raising pets, then do you have a poultry vet nearby? Or are you willing to medicate and hospitalize and do all of those things like I would think you would do for a dog? Are you willing to spend money on medications? If you were looking at it more for pest control or livestock, then are you willing to coal all the sick birds and only keep healthy? Birds to grow your flock with. Now I think we, in general, if you've listened to us for any length of time, then you know that we are hard callers. We don't medicate anything. But if you are new to listening to us, then come back and listen to some other stuff. We don't. Advise a lot of medications just because your flock is only as strong as your weakest bird and if you're going to reproduce and hatch off of them, then that's the DNA that you're hatching. So yeah, if you're gonna have birds to free range and eat bugs and stuff like that, they're gonna be exposed to all kinds of crap. And just like a kid, if they don't have an immune system to build up. Then they're gonna live, they're gonna be sick a lot, and you'll, if you don't like that bird right there, they're in hay instead of straw, which shouldn't be a thing because hay will mold and hold bacteria. It looks like there's poop on the food bowl. That's upside down. This is stock photo. It's not mine. Oh, yeah. Yeah. These are not ours, that's the condition that bird's living in and it really don't have a choice but to get sick unless it's got some really dang solid genetics. Which is one of the reasons too, why once I put checks in a brooder straight outta the hatcher, I don't clean out. The waste. I'll mix it up, but I'm not cleaning anything except for the feeder and the water. Because slowly introducing that bacteria that builds up over the chicks first couple of weeks, along with feeding it a dang good feed loaded with vitamins and minerals. That's how you get healthy birds. Yep. But we're not. Telling you not to medicate. We're just telling you, you need to decide what kind of flock that you need to keep. So if you're keeping pets and you're willing to go to the vet and give medications, then you need to prepare yourself for that because birds get sick, birds die, and. If you're doing livestock or meat and eggs, then you have to learn how to coal and process. So again, this show is about 10 mistakes you make at the beginning and planning. All of these things are about planning, essentially, so you need to plan what you're willing to do. Before it happens because it will happen. Every, everybody deals with sick verge at some point or another. Yeah. Or you don't have any. Okay. So all of this was leading into, all of this was questions that you have to answer for yourself and then go back and decide what breed type of bird is for you. I would, if you're just starting out, just go grab you some barnyard mixes from your friend down the road that hatched too many. Buy local and just get some barnyard mix. Get a feel for it. Don't put a lot of money into 'em and. See their personalities. Do you like the size of them? Do you wish they were smaller? Do you wish they were bigger? There's pros and cons to every single thing. Big birds. The hawks really don't mess with them. Small birds, they're gonna get carried away a lot. They don't, Hawks don't like black birds either. I don't know. I don't know why, but maybe they can't see 'em. I don't know. Find somebody that will. Rent you a coop. Yeah. There's a lot of those around. Yeah. You can rent 'em for the summer. Beam Farm does that in Oklahoma and he he listens every week. So Beam Farm, there you go. He rents out the coops and four hens, I think for the summer. Yeah, he does. He does. Coop four hands. A feeder in the water and a bag of feed. And so he and I are fixing to, we're working on getting him some of the small Illumina coops and he's going to be using those. And he said that, I asked him, I was like, how often do you have to go pick up a coop? And he said, most of the time they buy it and keep the birds. Oh and wind up, that they want more. He said sometimes, he'll drop 'em off and he'll get a call a week or two later and the people have decided that chickens are not for them. You could do something like that to find out if it's for you because yes, everybody loves the sound of a chick. It's hard to resist. But I. Going out and feeding something when it's 10 degrees outside and windy, or when it's 40 degrees outside and rainy, or when it's 110 degrees outside. That thing still depends on you for food and water. So farmers don't really get vacations. Yep. So do a little planning. Go back and make some notes here if you have an impulse bot already, and decide what kind of birds you wanna raise. And then if you have more questions, like to narrow it down, then shoot us an email. We'll try to answer it for you. Join some chicken groups on. Facebook or wherever you like to be and do a little education for yourself on which direction you would like to go to. But don't believe everything you hear in a Facebook group. No, please don't. But do send us the most absurd things that you've read today because we like to talk about those. Yeah, and there's some groups that I would say just go ahead and tag us. But we're kicked out of them. Sometimes we get banned from those because we give honest answers and, I don't really sugarcoat a whole lot, but that's just me. I don't like for people to sugarcoat me. My general practitioner doctor, my mom went to him and stopped because she can't stand the guy. I like him. He don't sugarcoat crap, instead of having to have a 25 minute conversation about your blood pressure, it's like a two to three minute conversation and you're out the door again. And just a reminder, we do have the incubation masterclass@incubationmasterclass.com and on Facebook under the same name to help you with your incubation travels. And I will, I do wanna say this incubation. If you get an incubator, it's probably as addictive. As crack or meth? Don't say that. 'cause I mean it's very, okay. It is addictive because watching those chicks hatch out is really cool to the point that some people put cameras inside their hatchers so they can watch it. And to the point that some people order glass doors for their cabinet incubators. So they can watch it. It's cool, but when you're first learning, if you're gonna buy you a $35 incubator off of Amazon or Tea move, don't go ordering a $50 set of eggs. Find somebody local that's got some barnyard mixes that'll let you try to hatch 'em. Just get some eggs, put 'em in there and see what happens. And work on getting your craft honed out because some people will say that those dumb incubators are garbage and you can't hatch worth the crap in 'em. I can tell you that in the incubation masterclass, we tell you lots of tips and tricks that you can use with those things to get a good hatch rate off of them. And, but don't practice with a $200 set of eggs. You gonna get mad at yourself probably. And today's lesson is no, you cannot incubate in a crockpot. And we're just gonna leave that there. We will see y'all in the next episode. Bye bye.