Feed and Water Systems with Jeff Mattocks

In this episode of The Poultry Nerds Podcast, hosts Jennifer Bryant of Bryant's Roost and Carey Blackmon of Double R Farms sit down with poultry expert Jeff Mattocks to explore optimal feed and water systems for poultry health and productivity. They discuss the importance of providing nutrient-dense feed to accelerate growth rates and reduce feed costs. The conversation also covers best practices for brooder management, including proper feeder space allocation and strategies to prevent feed and water waste. Additionally, Jeff shares insights on water quality testing, pH levels, and the benefits of incorporating apple cider vinegar to promote gut health. Whether you're a seasoned poultry keeper or a newcomer, this episode offers valuable information to enhance your flock's well-being and performance.

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Carey 0:23

Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant. And we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest and highest quality birds possible.

Monica 0:40

The Poultry Nerds Podcast is brought to you, in part, by the generous support of eggfoam dot com. Your trusted source to ship hatching eggs safely. They have several sizes available from small button quail to turkey size. Their shippers are cut to fit into United States Post Office complementary boxes to make your shipping a breeze. Check out eggfoam dot com

1:01

Mhm.

Carey 1:08

I have been out in the chicken yard at night and hear a loud crashing sound where they've been messing around inside. And they slam that bail up against the metal or that happened. But none of 'em are broke, so why would they break? They're built for chickens. Why would the cups break? They're built for chickens too, but they do. I'm not a Cup fan. I'm not a Nipple fan. I'm not a Cup fan either. I'm a Cup fan, I'm not a, the nipples I can get them to work with quail, but even with quail, if there's a cup in there, they're going for it. And I've never had quail break a cup, but I have had nipples fail or airlock the system. With if there's nothing but nipples in the tube, I've had them airlock and none of them be able to drink until I stuck my finger in there. If there's a cup in the line, it won't airlock, but I don't know that a cup with a bell water would be practical for quail.

Jeff Mattocks 2:19

I don't know. Okay. So I'm going to admit I'm not I'm on the learning curve for quail. I'm at the mercy of you experts. I'm not,

Carey 2:29

I don't think a bell water would be Unless you've got just a lot, but I will say this in my most recent brooder experience when I had to pull old faithful out because those a hundred chicks multiply quickly I get my a hundred gallon stock tank out, put me a couple inches of peat moss in it. And I started thinking, okay, I need to put like 30 birds in here. I don't have any little waterers. I'm not drilling a hole in the side of this metal tank. I think I had some bell waterers delivered today. So I go looking for a two by. Set that over the lid. Hang the bell waterer from it. Get it right above the ground because these things are barely a week old at this point. Take me a five gallon bucket, which I've been doing this a lot. I'll take the five gallon bucket. Pull a cup out of it. Coincidentally, the hole is the same size for the quarter inch barbed fitting that needs to go in there to hook up to the quarter inch line that feeds the bell water. Set that on top of the table in the barn, stick the water, stick the quarter inch hose that comes with the bell water up. Screw it onto the water, fill it up. They love it. They went nuts. And as they grew, at one point I had to get some boxes that I used to mail hatching eggs and raise the two by set the boxes in there as a spacer to raise the water up higher, worked really well.

Jeff Mattocks 4:10

But yeah, you need to adjust that water, that water lip or that water height and and when they have to reach for it, they drink more. I feel that way. And I think that's why the commercial industry has gone to nipples, right? Cause they have to reach for it.

Carey 4:25

They can raise them.

Jeff Mattocks 4:26

Right.

Carey 4:26

Yeah.

Jeff Mattocks 4:26

But that's a whole other system. It's way more efficient for them to do that in their mind. It's more, I

Carey 4:34

mean, if I'm raising 50, 000 birds at a time in a house, you're going to do that. I can see that.

Jeff Mattocks 4:40

Because when they leave and you do clean out day and all that, and say, okay, they're all connected to cables. You can raise and lower them all

Carey 4:47

at the same

Jeff Mattocks 4:48

time.

Carey 4:49

Clean your floor out. Do all that. Lower them. Pressure wash them. When you pressure wash the floor, you're ready. As soon as it dries, you're ready for the next batch. Now, me personally,

Jeff Mattocks 5:00

if somebody asked me about water, I want large volume water, right? So I want a water trough. I want a water tub. I want and the reason, okay, let me explain why I want it this way. It is. Most people work away, right? Yeah, they do their chores morning and evening, but they're gone throughout the day. So if you have a supply line, whether it's your bucket, whether it's pressurized Whether it's whatever it is if you have water failure What is your water reserve capacity? How long will those birds last based on what? Okay, let's just use your bell water, for instance, right? How much water is in that bell water? I tipped it out. Is there even a cup?

Carey 5:47

Probably not. Okay. It's probably maybe four or five ounces. And everybody

Jeff Mattocks 5:53

wants to put 60 to 100 birds on one cup or on one bell water, which is wrong. Should be 40, 40 to 50 max. But you have no backup. You and I were talking earlier about redundancy. Yeah, having a backup plan. With all the modern systems of watering, whether it's cup, nipple, bell water, I have no, there's no backup plan. There's no Redundancy. There's a failure, there's a problem. You get a hundred degree day in Alabama or anywhere else in the world

Carey 6:25

And

Jeff Mattocks 6:25

you don't have water.

Carey 6:27

See, that's why I like the bellwaters in the breeding pens, because if they hit that and splash some water out, it's fixing to refill. If they break one of those cups and their five gallon bucket empties out until I get home, which is after the heat of the day, they're not seeing it. And what I do is I feed mine with the five gallon bucket. I have a five gallon bucket at the beginning of the water line. And it's got a barb that's a couple inches up from the bottom. I put a couple of half inch copper elbows in it. Guy I know told me that. Copper will help keep your water clean. And on the, towards the top side of the bucket, I have a float valve that's hooked to a hose pipe that stays on. Because in Alabama, it doesn't get below freezing a whole lot, but it does get above 90 a lot. I've got that float valve always on so they don't run out as long as nothing breaks. I'm good. If somebody accidentally cuts the water off, there's at least five gallons worth. So that'll last them a couple of hours. So for that, I like it.

Jeff Mattocks 7:47

So one of the neatest tricks, and I learned this from a guy in New Jersey, this is not my bright idea, any more than the copper in the water reservoir, is heat, and this was before plastics went crazy, but he would go to Walmart or other discount store and he would get like a 20 quart cooler, right? Holds five gallons, right? Or he'd even get one slightly bigger, 36, doesn't matter. He figured out how to mount that at the right position for his pens whether it was cold or whether it was hot, he could put tempered water in that cooler, and most of them have a drain plug, and he adapted that drain plug to his feed line to supply his bell waters. Even if he, so middle of the summer, hotter than you know what, and, he would put cold water in there. And then, if that wasn't enough, he could freeze blocks of ice to put in there. To continue to keep that water cool, right? And in the winter time, you can put hot water. You can run hot water out of the tap. You put it in there. He was good for hours, just simply by using, what used to be a 1995, cheap 24 quart cooler, and yeah, he just plumbed that thing up and figured out how to mount it in his chicken coops. So

Carey 9:12

I use, in the winter months, I use black buckets because obviously algae grows a lot slower if at all in a black bucket because it doesn't get any sunlight. That works great, but the black attracts the heat. So when it is 20s and 30s, I don't have any freeze ups. Comes in pretty handy. It's not great in the summertime. But what I have found is the cheap bottles of water, the ones that rattle a lot, gets your animal's attention because it rattles. You take that straight out of the pack, put it in the freezer. They don't bust. They'll swell up. They won't bust. Put you about four or five of them in your five gallon bucket in the morning. You're good. You're good. They love it.

Jeff Mattocks 10:05

The reason I like the cooler is it had the lid, right? So there's no leaves blowing in there. There's no possible debris. There's no.

Carey 10:14

Let's see, I've got snap lids on my buckets for that reason, because I don't want anything clogging up my water line. But you also have a million buckets for other purposes. So not a million, but yeah, I do get a couple thousand at a time. You have a surplus of buckets. Yes, I do. While we're talking about water, let's talk about What should the water look like? What should the pH be? What are some ways that we can check it? What are some ways that we can make them drink more? And what are some ways that we can get the water to where it needs to be? I

Jeff Mattocks 10:46

think everybody should make the investment for their family's health, their bird's health, and everything. People need to get their water tested, right? So you're testing it for bacteria E. coli and coliform. So you want to make sure that it's a Negative bacteria, negative, colony farming units, but then you also want to get the, I don't want to say regular water test, but you want to get another comprehensive test that gives you pH hardness. What are the dissolved minerals in your water? Is it calcium? Is it iron? Is it manganese? Is it whatever? You need to know these things, right? And then, a good nutritionist or whoever, so either you correct the water or you make adjustments for the feed to, to compliment or go along with that water. But in a lot of cases, consider, fixing the water. So now if the water is close to good, I'm a big fan of apple cider vinegar. I think it does a lot for gut health. I think it does a lot for cleaning up the bloodstream circulatory system. The birds like it. I think it aids in feed digestion. So I think you get more miles out of the feed eaten. Um, if the water's really off, if it's extremely hard, then we got to look at ways of softening that water. I've seen some really good plans out there of catching rainwater and trying to use that as much as possible because rainwater is naturally soft. So if you put in a water collection system, you should be able to use rainwater a fair amount of the time. And people say I'm on municipal water, right? And they think their government or their township or their county or their water supply people actually are providing them good water. No. It we they send out a, where they test it every year. They do test it every year.

Carey 12:42

Okay.

Jeff Mattocks 12:43

They don't tell

Carey 12:43

you what to look for in the test? No.

Jeff Mattocks 12:45

All their te all they have to test for. In the past this is changing because of, dissolved plastics and P FOAs and all that other stuff. But in the past, all they had to check do was a bacteria test. They could still serve you hard water, they could still serve you high sulfur water, they could still serve you whatever. As long as it was, Under the guidance of potable drinkable drinking water which is primarily bacteria. That's why they put a bunch of bacteria, or they put a bunch of chlorine in most municipal water. Yep. And that's what they're serving.

Carey 13:25

And chlorine is not good for you. In the other thing that I have a lot of buckets for, I use sodium hypochlorite, twelve and a half percent. What I use it for is an additive for a cleaner that I make. But there's several times a year where it's on allotment and when I find out why, it's because municipalities have priority because they use it for treating water. And I'm like, wait a minute, you're using a level of bleach that is high enough to where if it comes in contact with your bare skin, it's going to cause burns. You're mixing that with my water for me to drink. Yeah, I don't like that. So with that, I I just checked the pH of mine at home using a pool test kit from a hot tub and it's barely six. In

Jeff Mattocks 14:25

your region, that's, I would expect five and a half to six and that's, it's okay. So for a chicken, it's not horrible. But it's still not, we're not getting everything out of the feed. The health is not going to be a hundred percent. So if we could adjust that water, good, pure, clean water. Out in nature somewhere that hasn't been disturbed by human beings wants to be roughly between 6, 8, and 7. But 7 is where water wants to be. 7 pH.

Carey 15:00

If your water is 6 or 5, that's where the apple cider vinegar comes

Jeff Mattocks 15:06

in. Apple cider vinegar is still acidic. Depending on what's causing that pH to be low, Already, you could make that worse. See, this is where having that water test and knowing what you're drinking, what your family's drinking and what your chickens are drinking is really important. And then talk to a water professional and figure out how to get it, Corrected.

Carey 15:30

Because I don't drink my water at my house and a lot of people don't, there have been times that I have turned the faucet on. And had a tan hue to my water. Yeah. What I have done is the, they make a water filter for RV. Screws right in line with the hose pipe. And when you got hose pipes running all over your chicken yard, it comes in very handy. So I come off of the spigot with a four foot leader, hook it into one side of the filter. Then I hook a couple of splitters up on the other side to send the water everywhere it needs to go. So I do filter it. Now I know that's not getting it like a bottle water. It's better, but it is a lot better than what they have. 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 egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.

16:51

Mhm.