Splash, Ermine & Modeled: Decoding Americana Color Genetics with Gina Wrather

Gina Wrather of Wrather Farms in Columbia, Tennessee returns to break down three of the most visually stunning — and most misunderstood — color varieties in Americana chickens. We dig into the genetics behind Splash, Ermine, and Modeled, explain why a recessive gene can hide for 20 years before showing up in your hatch, and talk about the breeder responsibility that comes with selling birds. If you've ever hatched a surprise chick and wondered where it came from, this episode is for you.

Join the Poultry Nerds and Gina Wrather from Wrather Farms as we breakdown backyard and exhibition breeding tactics.

Join Carey of Show Pro Farm Supply and Jennifer of Bryant's Roost as we delve into chickens and quail (mostly)  to help you enjoy your birds more and worry less. Backyard chicken keeping shouldnt be stressfull, let's get back to the simple days

Valley Hatchery is a proud sponsor of Poultry Nerds, find more at ValleyHatchery.com

Transcript

0:41

Boom. All right, we're recording. We did it again. Yep, we found the button. We are joined today with Gina again. Hi Gina. Hey there. So we got an email question sent to us by a anonymous person. We'll leave them anonymous. And she was asking about the genetics for splash modeled in Ermine. So I thought who better than Gina? Rather to explain that to us. So here you are again. Yeah, thank you. I feel like we, go ahead. No, I feel like we talked about Americana's not too long ago, but maybe it has been a while. It has been a minute. Is it been a year almost? Maybe. I don't know. When you talk about chickens all day, every day, time flies, it is, yeah. Tom Plaza. And you're having fun, right? I rather from Rather Farms in Columbia, Tennessee. We raised Flash Americana along with Rhode Island Red, dark Brown Leghorn. I am shi Black Copper Maron, silver maron. And I feel like I'm forgetting something. And some various sex link hybrids for the local folks that like their sex links, yeah, and I have a passion for chicken color genetics and showing my birds and experimenting with different colors, and I'm having a blast with a couple of different projects right now. But Splash Americana is one of my favorite breeds. So when Jennifer asked me to talk about Americana, I was more than happy to do we're gonna ask you all kinds of dumb questions'cause we really don't know very much except for what you told us last time. So I don't know anything about these genetics except maybe a little bit of the modeled. But let's dig in. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right. So what we got here? All right. This is a Splash Americana bullet. This picture was from the Dixie Classic in Knoxville last December. She took reserve champion, A OSV. A lot of times when people walk by and casually look at the splash Americana, they say, oh, is that Hermine? Because they hear about Hermine and the image of an hermine kind of sticks in people's heads because they are a remarkably colored bird. The splash, however, is genetically very different than in her mine. They're both built, they're both essentially blackbird built on extended black at the e Locust. So you take a blackbird and you add two copies of the blue gene to get to splash. So one copy of blue will turn a black bird, dilute it to blue, and the standard for blue, according to the American Poultry Association, says that a good quality blue will also have a darker edge or darker lacing to the feathers in the majority of the body. Females typically all over the males, you won't see the lacing so much except on the breast.'cause males have sexually dimorphic plumage. So their heads, their backs, their tails are almost so dark that it is all extremely dark blue and hides that lacing. But on a good splash you can, you should be able to see that. Little edge of even darker blue around the solid blue feathers. Splash feathers are allowed to be party color. I'll call it. You can have a feather that is half blue and half completely diluted out to white, and that's acceptable. Whereas an ermine, their standard, the ideal ermine would have a mixture of completely solid black feathers, completely solid white feathers. And so the difference is in the detail, when you're looking at these birds, you wanna look at them on an individual feather basis. Your model is going to. Have a white tip on the very ends of each feather is a good model. So can I ask you a question about this one? Yeah. Okay. So you said it's a black base with two copies of blue? Okay. So if one copy of blue gives it a blue overall color, would this kind of be like white leakage all over? I guess you could flip it around and think of it as leakage. Not true leakage in the sense that we usually use that word, but in an abstract way. Yes. So the black feather essentially gets completely diluted to white in a lot of areas when you have two copies of blue. Okay. You wanna do the next slide? Yeah, so this is a splash Americana male, and you can see on his tail feathers, he has some of those party colored feathers I was talking about. You've got streaks of blue and you've got a majority of white on a lot of them. You've got a majority of blue and some streaks of white, and true to the sexually dimorphic plumage. You have a darker head, you have a darker saddle. You have a darker tail, and the. Top of the wings, the wing Bowes are darker colored as well. And so you see that in the blue and splash birds. Do you breed splash to get more splash? Yes. Splash to Splash will produce splash 100% of the time. But does it produce more splash? Summertime's approaching and I'm, I think about going swimming sometimes. So I'm just wondering, is Splash and Splash is more Splash? Yes. Okay. I'm trying to wrap my brain around the genetics. So can it get so washed out that you end up with almost a white bird? That's a great question. So for a long time, that was the advice that was given to splash breeders is if you continue to breed splash to splash, eventually your birds will get lighter and lighter. The problem with that is that the people that was happening to aren't paying attention to the melons. So I mentioned that this is genetically a blackbird. But to get a solid blackbird requires more than just the extended black alleles at the e locust. You also need melano gene, maybe even some recessive black melons that don't have enough formal name. A black bird. Any black bird will want to have that leakage that you were talking about. And we usually see the leakage most commonly in the hackle. In the Wing Bowes and sometimes in the saddle, especially on males those extra meins are what is needed to keep those black areas black. And on top of that, the pattern gene is what is responsible for pushing, especially in a blue that you melanin to the edge of the feather and create that lacing. So you need to keep the metic gene in your breeding and you need to keep the pattern gene in that breeding and you need to select your splash breeders. So you are breeding the ones that are most strongly melan eyes. So I can use a lighter blue splash in my breeding program, but I wanna be careful to breed her to an exceptionally well melan ice male. Like this guy right here who's very dark blue. I wouldn't want to breed her to a splash male who is a pale blue or almost white because then I'm, I've already lost my melons in her. Even if she has exceptionally nice type, I'm going to pair her to something with the mes that I need so I don't get a lighter and lighter bird. So with doing this, you really gotta pay attention to not only. The desired traits, but some that may be considered not so much desired, but you've gotta be able to combine them to get what you want as far as the coloring goes, to keep that part of it intact. Yeah, and it's, and that's with any breed, you're gonna be balancing your type with your color. And type is always gonna be most important, but. Understanding that you need those meins. Every generation will keep you from washing your splash out. Got it. All right. All right. This is another little pull. And this picture shows her lacing and her saddle and her shoulders there on the edge of her breast at the base of her neck really well. You can see some of her darker lacing there in her tail too. She was a pretty nice example for our show today, so I stuck her in here. But that, that lacing is key in good blues and therefore good splash. And the the party color feathers again, you see a white feather. That second feather down in her tail is mostly white and it's got just a splash of blue there in the shaft and there's a few feathers down. It's the same way. Identifying splash is pretty easy when you look at the individual feathers. All right, so I have a test question. Okay. Let's say you have a hen that is solid blue and she has the slate legs, and then you have a rooster that is blue from like the breast down and has like fiery orange. And yellows in their hackle feathers and a black head. How I, is it possible to get it to where you have a solid blue rooster as well through, generations of selective coloring and whatnot? Or is the roosters always gonna have a different hackle? So you're talking about different e locus is here. So if you have a solid blue hen with no color in her hackle probably going to be built on extended black. Your rooster with his blue breast and his red hackle. Is probably going to be basically a black breasted red with a blue dilution, which causes him to be a blue breasted red. His wing bay is probably going to be red or gold, I'm guessing. So where you see his secondaries when he's standing at rest. Do you recall what color his swing bay is? Not off the top of my head, no. Okay. It's probably red. So he's gonna be either a brown, which is the genetic shorthand. Eb, he's gonna be a wild type genetic shorthand, e plus, or he is gonna be a Wheaton. Probably not a Wheaton. Did you say he has slate legs? Yes. Okay. They both do. He could be a Wheaton with slate legs, but. Probably not. I'd have to see'em bred to her. If she is homozygous for extended black, you could get a a solid blue bird. You could get a solid black bird. Or you could even get a bird that is flesh. It is gonna be like a box of chocolates, essentially, is what you're saying. It is yeah. But I love with blue because you've got so many options. You, they could make some pretty babies. Yeah. All right. This is an ermine. This is Becky Pelton's. Becky Pelton created the ermine variety of Americana. And so like I mentioned earlier, ermine, their distinction is they should have wholly black and wholly white feathers. The ideal ermine does not have feathers that are black with white in them or white with black on them. Each feather is a whole color, and they are true black built. They should be built on extended black. But they, the reason that they have this color is because of a single copy of the dominant white jean and the dominant white jean when there is only one copy. Allows for leaky holes. So there's this leakage word again. It's the same gene that is responsible for the zombies that I make. But Ermine has a much stronger expression. It has a lot more holes. The chick peeping in the background. That's hungry. Little Cornish. I was gonna say, sometimes you wanna be like, Hey, you're interrupting me. Quit trying. Yeah. Yeah. We, I've already had, I'm trying to do something earlier today look, your feeder is full, your water is clean. So anyway where was I? So yes, the Hermine and in the dominant white, so one copy of Dominant White makes this pattern and Ermine is different than. The dominant white that comes from like the Leghorn or Rhode Island White that I use in my zombies, they generally only have a few black spots. The Ermine is closer to 50 50. Don't remember off the top of my head what their standard currently calls for. It may be 60 40, so don't kill me, Becky, but, there may be modifiers and it may be a completely different allele at the dominant white locust entirely. I don't think anybody is really sure. There are some people that believe strongly one way or the other. But there is no question that there is something different about the genes that the ermine has as opposed to a paint silky or a heterozygous, any other heterozygous dominant white breed. So is each feather a color or does it looks like it has black tips? Is that right? Nope. So what you're seeing that looks like a black tip is being overlaid by a fully white feather. And so again, this is why it's important to inspect individual feathers. You would be able to lift that white feather up and see that black underneath is an entirely white feather all the way down to the bottom of the shaft. Huh. All right. So if somebody mixed an ermine in a splash, what happens? A hot mess. You put blue ermine. That is a genetically blackbird that we're looking at, and splash has two copies of blue, so they're going to pass one copy of blue every time, and black plus one copy of blue equals a blue bird. Layer dominant white on top of that and you have, just some holes where the blue feathers will poke, pop through. So you could easily do a blue or mine that way. Interesting. Yeah, just make'em camouflage. This is an Hermine. Cockrell again of Becky Pelton. And you can see maybe a little bit better on this guy's breast feathers and in his tail, the holy black versus holy white feathers. And, as opposed to the splash, I talked about how they're darker in the head, in the saddle and in the tail and in the wing boat or in the wing bay or wing boat, rather at the top of the wing in the shoulders. And this guy has pretty even color throughout, and that's a hallmark of the splash or the Irvine Americana as well. Huh? Okay. Arm mine. Last one, I think. Yep. Becky's. Yep. And again, this girl has the fully black feathers in her tail. Fully white feathers in her tail. She's a beautiful little girl. Oh, I think there's one more, even better picture. I love this. I had a fit when Becky said this one to me. There. That one. She's so pretty. She looks like an owl. This is, I believe, the photography. Yes, the photography of Lee Edwards. She is pretty. I said if you don't have this one framed in your house, then you're crazy. All right. And then we go to modeled. So modeled is a white tip on the end of a colored feather, and it doesn't always have to be black. So in the case of let's say, a speckled Sussex, you're gonna have red. And black with a white tip. This particular example is a modeled bra from this and that acres, and you can see the white tips on her feathers. Okay, so now we have a black base with white wing tips. Yep. White tips everywhere. And the curious thing about model. Is that it tends to be progressive. So the older the bird, the more white that they get which I understand makes it extremely difficult to show modeled pens and cocks. Because modeled the modeled pattern kind of calls for just the tips of the feathers to be white. Maybe I don't raise any model, but I have heard I've heard the. I don't wanna say complaints. That's a terrible word I've heard. The concerns of modeled breeders and exhibitors with that would be a bird that you'd have to hang on to a while for a while to see if it got where it needed to be. Yeah. So in quail, they have a progressive pie. So the older it gets, the wider it gets. Sounds similar. Yeah. Okay. Where is the white on the pi? It just comes up anywhere. And as the bird gets older, it just turns more and more white. Is it a whole feather white, a partial feather white? Oh, no. I don't know. Never looked that closely. I don't know. I don't have them. Yeah. Yeah that's tough when you're trying to talk about a breeder variety. Don't even raise. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have them. But now let's finish talking about what they look like and then we'll get into the genetic part of it. Yeah. Again, as you can see, the white tips on these feathers modeled, it seems to have whiter heads than anywhere on the rest of the body, but you have more feathers in a greater concentration on the head. And so if every single feather is tipped in white and you have tons of feathers all packed together in one area, it is gonna look a little bit more white in the head. So makes sense. And this is a young bird, obviously, and she is just coming in with her adult plumage. And so she has very few white spots, but she probably looked very similar to the chick that was emailed to you. All right. This girl, she is very pretty. And again, just the white tips on the feathers. Yeah. All right. That's all of them. That's all the pictures. So the question that was presented to us was somebody who thought that they had ermine. And when they hatch the eggs, they see a modeled chick. So can you explain the genetics there? So modeled is a recessive gene and recessive genes can hide for generations. Until that recessive gene carrier meets another carrier of that same recessive gene. A recessive has to exist. In both copies, so become homozygous in order for it to express its trait. So if the breeder that she got her birds from, it's possible that breeder could be, breeding that line and have a very diverse, genetically speaking flock and have never experienced that until, you have some sort of mating that. It brings, she could have started 10 years ago with one bird that was a carrier and 10 other birds and 10 hens. One hen that was a carrier, right? And 10 other birds in her flock that did not carry it. And it isn't until that one carrier's offspring, somewhere down the line, runs into and gets mated to another carrier. From that line, they come back together and both genes exist in the same bird. And you pop out a modeled chick, and we see this in a lot of recessive traits. And so when I had the cos I ended up with two sports, two solid white birds. And then I got'em modeled. And so I went back to the original breeder, and this is where if you buy from breeders you're buying their information too. And hopefully you find a good breeder and you can go back to'em like I did. And so I went back to him and I said, Hey, this is what I'm getting. And we talked about it for a few minutes and he said 20 years ago I crossed out to a modeled in order to Oh my gosh, to do something. And he said, I can't remember exactly what his reason was now, but he was trying to accomplish something. And and he said, and I've never. Messed with it again. He said, I don't even have modeled. And he asked if I had ever out crossed or was it still true to his line? And it was true. I had never out crossed. And but I had sibling M made it just to see what other recessives were in there. And that's what had brought it out. But he told me a trick. He said, if you look in the armpit when they're getting their adult plumage, there'll be a white feather in their armpit. And that's how you can see the modeled. There'll be a white feather in their armpit if they're a carrier, but not truly modeled. I think that's what he said. If memory serves. Yeah. Huh. That's interesting. Yep. Now Gina's gonna write that down and then when she goes to feed her birds, she's gonna look at all of'em. Armpits. So she's gonna find it. I kept that girl because she had such fantastic type and I just, she was so sweet anyway but she looked like she was going gray in the head. She molted that fall and then when she came back, her head was just like, like she was an old lady, and she had gray in her hair and, but her of course the coachings have those long, the standard gray coachings. They're. Their feathers on their feet are really long. And hers were just bright white. She's a black bird and she had gray hair and white toe feathers. Oh my gosh. And yeah. So she had more after she molted. Yeah. Yeah. They do get progressively more white. I when I started dabbling with the Imani color Genetics, I brought in some speckled Sussex, and that's the only model that I have. Played with, and I only did one generation had I done a second generation of a, the Somani Sussex. My goal was to get a fibro melanic bird with the modeled markings. And in my journey I learned that modeled is a huge suppressor of fibro melanosis. And so it would wash out my skin color and a project awarded. I abandoned that one, but they were pretty jigs nonetheless. But now Carrie makes me, yeah, I wonder if I had opened the wing and looked in the armpit if I'd have found a little white feather in the heterozygous birds. Yep. Okay. So how do you, how the only real way that a lady could think that she got modeled would be just the pairing was exactly right and. Yeah. Like in my case, 20 years later it pops up. Yeah. Yeah. And so she did the, she would do the right thing to go back to the breeder. As a breeder, I would want to know that someone had such a thing. I would want to work to find out who those parents were and probably commence with test the rest of my flock. I don't, I'm not aware of a, any genetic test that identifies the model gene. So it would be a whole process if I was really concerned about modeling, being in my ermine, Americana to find my carriers. And once I found a carrier, I would use it to test breed each bird against. And if they hatched out a model, then you know that other bird that I'm pairing the tattletale with. Is a culprit, but it would be a process to test every bird in the clock. Yeah. But in the show, okay, if we're just talking about for show, then it really doesn't matter because. The show, you're just based on phenotype. Yes. Yes. And so we've had this discussion amongst the guy, so people too. And you know the big talks about the recessively locus alleles lately. Yeah. If you're showing. It is a phenotype game. But as a reputable breeder, you have a responsibility to tell people that you are aware of this recessive allele in your birds. What the probability is of hatching such a chick. And it's a waste of resources to. I don't know. It is, it seems like a waste of resources to go through all the test breeding, but for me, I don't want to worry about these sort of recessives in my birds. And so I want to be clean of them. It's taken me three years and I am, this place is almost 100% clean of recessive e locus alleles. So it to those people that know that they have it. I would say just be honest. It doesn't mean that your birds are bad. It's better to be upfront with people and say, Hey, you might pop out, a striped chick or a model chick or a white chick, or something abnormal. If you do, let me know about it. But, I just want to know for my own records and, probability tracking, when you, the more you breed your line, the more it, you know what it's gonna throw, you know what's gonna happen with it, and you know what's there. And you can almost predict what each chick will look like. So if you find somebody like me and you that, that don't outcross, and bring in new fresh blood or mixed blood or new blood or whatever people call it. Yeah then the line is basically true and you know what's there. So like in my orpingtons I used to post pictures of the chicks all the time and I would get flack back for it. So just really just keep the orpingtons for myself at this point. But. Most of my Orpingtons, when they hatch, have little fringes, little stubs on the outside of their legs. Oh yeah. It falls off by the time they're two weeks old. It doesn't sweat me one bit because it's, they don't have STS when they're adults, but it's almost like baby fuzz on their bottom of their feet when they're hatched. But it's all gone by the time they're two weeks. But the couple times I've posted pictures, people have been like, oh, you got something else that got into your pen, or You've got something going on there. Sure we've got something going on there. There's 50 billion gene combinations that can be happening in there, but I know it's there and it doesn't bother me because I know it's gonna be gone in two weeks. Yeah. Because I know my line that persist at all. Do what? You don't ever have any stubs that persist at all. That's nice. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. And sometimes, my, I don't have any problem being honest. Sometimes my che will hatch with those and they will retain them and sometimes they will hatch perfectly clean legged, and by the time they're six months old, they have feathers between their toes or one or two stubs on their shanks. There is no rhyme or reason you cannot predict, when this stuff is gonna pop up. So about not last year, the year before. So 2024, I went through and I called every chick that hatched with sts. If it hatched, it was gone. And I went back to the breeders and got rid of all those breeders. And then last year I started noticing that I was getting that, but they're not stubs. It's almost like. Baby fuzz is really the better way to describe it. And so I was like I can't cull. They all had it. And I couldn't call every chick. You can cu yourself out of birds if you're not careful. And so I just let'em go. And then when I was moving'em out of the brooder, like to the next brooder at two weeks, I'm looking at'em, I'm like where'd the stubs go? They're all gone. And so then I started like paying more attention and that's when I realized, okay, now I'm not worried about it. So I went out there and of course, I've got Orpingtons everywhere and I just stand there and I was looking and. I don't have any studs now. I've brought my skirts down because I like that flu your bottom for myself. But down below the skirt, no, I don't have any stuss anymore. Yeah. And there, there are multiple genes, recessive and dominant that drive the feathers on the shanks. So yeah, it's not like you can go through your flock and. Pick out the ones that carry it. Yeah, you're absolutely right. You could cu yourself completely out of a bunch of good birds. Oh yeah. You can cu yourself right out of birds altogether. But back to what I was gonna make, the point with the showing is there are people who only breed for show. So if their birds were, say, getting really tight, feathered. They may outcross to say a looser feathered bird just to, for next year's shows, just to create something just slightly different to see how it performed with the judges. Because they don't really care about the genetics, the longevity of it. They just care about what's gonna happen in the cage basically. Is it that they don't really care about the genetics of it, or is it that. They don't understand it enough to be able to articulate it to the next person that is interested in buying that bird. It was just something that they did and it worked and know. Now they may or may not have some recessives in there. So the I've heard the argument before. I only breed for show. It doesn't matter. I'll call out anything but. That pops out that I don't want. It's fine. It's fine for you. But if you ever intend to sell, then you're not just an exhibitor. You are a breeder and a cellar. And so I think we have a responsibility to the people that we share our birds with to be able to articulate what they may have, what they may be hiding. Yeah, because let's be honest, there are people that love to drag breeders through the mud. When something like this happens, you invest, people are considering this, an investment. You invest in orine, Americana from a supposedly reputable breeder and you hatch something that's a surprise. They didn't get their money's worth. And so now that breeder's name is, could be drug through the mud. Yeah, when like your hadn't seen it in 20 years. They didn't, they may or may not have learned that it was lurking. He's a very reputable breeder and been around for a long time. But it's, everybody buys birds for different reason. And when I was showing, even though my show stint was short, and I realized that wasn't the my thing, there are people who literally just buy birds to show. Like they don't raise birds, they just buy'em to show'em. And so there's all kinds of people, and I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I agree with you. You should be honest. Okay. I didn't breed this bird bred this bird, or I don't know what its genetics are. It just does well in the show ring, just be honest about it. Yeah. Yeah. But then there's the flip side, just like this email from this lady. It's very possible and probably highly likely that this breeder had no idea modeled was in her line. Yeah. Even if she had it and was breeding it true for 20 years, she may still not have known. Yep. Yeah and I can see somebody thinking that maybe modeled in Ermine were close enough to the same thing. What would happen if I bred to a model? Let me try this. Not understanding that genetically they're completely different and when they hatch nothing but black chicks, they said okay, that didn't work. Let me move on with this black bird. Yeah. That's what important is. That's why it's important to find a good breeder if you really want. If you really want what you want, try to find a breeder that matches your vision, but know that you're still at a starting point, your starting point, not a finish point. And that's why every time when somebody asks me, Hey, do you know where I could get some good blah? I always tell'em, man, you gotta go to a show. Yeah, go to a show, meet people. Check out the breed groups. Check out the people inside of it. Some of'em gonna be honest, some of'em ain't. And build a relationship. That's where, that's where you can find the best of anything is through relationships. And learning about your breed. Learn as much as you can about your breed before you select a breeder that you want to purchase from. And, I hate to say it, but one of the ones that frustrates me the most is one of the ones that you raise and that's the, I am Shaima. Like I could not tell you how many times in one of the groups here in this area. I see exhibition quality, iron, shaima,$200 or whatever, ridiculous price. I'm like, oh, let me see. Click, bring that picture up. I'm like, whoa. And now there, there's been times that I've said there's been so many people that were buying into it. That I posted a picture of and I am shaman that I know that you have, that is definitely one that could win a show. And I'm like, this is what you're looking for. If you want a show quality bird, not that one. And I will, I listed the defaults, on, on this bird. You should see no white. Yeah, and it one of the things wrong with that one was it had a red tongue. Oh. I'm like, dude that's so far outta whack. And the person that, I didn't get banned from the group, but I did get blocked. I've been banned from a few, but, people. It really upsets me because that particular bird is like a mystery in itself and there's so many people that want to get'em, and there's people that will just hatch whatever they can and sell it as top of the line. And because top of the line in that bird is not. Like overly available. It's not there. It's hard. It's probably one of the highest coal rate birds there is. They just, they don't know any different. Yeah, and I get that and that's why I tell people, before you get a bird, you need to know your goals and you need to know that breed and know the breed standard. Break out your Googler and use it. Yep. Yep. I don't even want to sell to anyone that isn't, that hasn't educated themself on the breed already. They're not passionate about it. No. No. And if you can't spell it, you can't buy it from me. Oh, no. Definitely not. Like I've had somebody that. Every three or four months, they'll contact me about my reds. I don't have, I still don't have any man. Those things ain't been laying in so long. Because I just, I've seen that person's place and I just really don't feel like they would take care of the birds that I, the way I would want them taken care of. I. And I won't even put a price on it'cause there's not one. And this is where we start to get accused of gatekeeping, right? So we hear this word bandied about a lot in the poultry world, especially in the last few years. And I don't care. There's a reason for that. Yeah. Yeah. When we, I wanna help anyone that genuinely has an interest in learning my breeds and taking, being good stewards of them. I don't want to sell to anyone who just wants to take my birds and reproduce as many of them as they can and, use my name or my, and not Cole. Yeah, and not call and just be able to stand on my laurels. If they want to take my birds and they want to ask for help on what they should call for, I will. I will spend my time, go to their house, help them call through, help them understand what they're looking for. I want them to come to shows. I want them to exhibit alongside me. I want them to beat me. If you take my birds and you show alongside me and you beat me at show. Yeah. And you did a better job raising my birds than I did. You did a better job selecting the birds to bring, to show your bird was conditioned better. Kept a nicer facilities. I challenge anyone, I want people to do that. And so I have a buddy of mine that is a. This guy's a judge and he also shows birds. And he's man, lemme tell you what happened at this poultry show. Like what I'm surprised I took 12 birds and only two or three of'em placed. I said, really?'cause normally most of his birds will place'cause he's a pretty hardcore color. And he said, but once every got, everybody got put on Champions Row. I got to seeing the people that was there and the birds did look familiar and they were my birds. I got beat by my own birds. That's awesome. I said, buddy, just look at it as you winning indirectly. He said, yeah, I thought it was pretty cool. So I look at it from a different standpoint. I don't sell a lot of my orpingtons and people who are getting into birds, they hear they want buff Orpingtons. They're good layers, they're sweet, and that is all a true statement, but there's a huge size difference. Between a utility orpington and what I have. And so I usually just tell people, no, I don't have anything available. First of all, mine aren't fantastic layers because that's not what they were really bred for, but the sheer size of them is you've got to have space. You, one of the breeders I've got up there right now, if I pick him up, he is literally like 42 inches from beak to tail. And most people don't have space for that size of a bird. He's the size of a Turkey. And I don't think until they people get here and like they, I still got two. Orpingtons out there. They're 14 years old and they still lay every day. And yeah, I do. That's they have curled toes and they're white and they're saucy and their comb falls over. But man, they're out there every day chasing bugs and laying eggs, but. They are like shorter and a little bit rounder in, of course they're old, but there's a definite difference. They're harder feather, they're smaller. These are big birds and I can't, it's hard to explain that to people. You can't see that in a picture. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And most people do not understand the difference between exhibition birds and the utility or hatchery grade birds. And that's another reason why I encourage people to come to a show, just come and look at these birds. Yeah. And the, just like the people that come here to pick up chicks and, Orville's running around. And he greets everybody and they say, oh my gosh, what is he? And he's a Rhode Island Red. No, I've got Rhode Island Reds. And my Rhode Island Red Rooster doesn't look like that. And he's an asshole, by the way. I said that's the difference, and everybody gets educated on Rhode Island Red and they come here and then they want one. Of course, and you have to break it to them that they are not the prolific layers that you got from Tractor Supply. They take 40 million years to start laying and as soon as it gets 92 degrees, they stop laying and yeah. If anything remotely stresses in things out, they're gonna stop laying uhhuh. Yep. If the sun don't come up on time today, they're like, nah, I'm just gonna keep this one today. Yeah. My girls will go broody and they will be serious about it. And I've had people, man I would love one of your Rhode Island red roosters. I could put those with some of my hens and they would just have some of the prettiest babies that would lay so much like I doubt it. Yeah, they would,'cause mine lay really well. They lay a lot like mine don't. Yo is standard birds for the show art. They don't look for eggs in the show box. They look at everything else, so I have a funny story about somebody who came to pick up some animals. They came, they bought two little Nigerian dwarf goats, like new babies, right? And they were weaned, so eight or nine weeks. But what is the. A eight or nine week old goat weigh, like four pounds or something. They're little, right? The size of a cat or something. Anyway, so they brought a 36 inch dog cage to put these goats in. And then while they were there, I had also had an add up for extra coaching cock rolls actually. And, and we were getting ready to put'em in the freezer that day. But this lady who was picking up these goats wanted one of the cock girls. So I was waiting for her to get there so she could pick the one out that she wanted. And so we went around the side of the barn and I said, just tell me which one you want. I had six or eight of them over there. And her husband was getting the cage ready to put the goat. Babies in and I didn't realize that she had a cat carrier in her hand. Now I was thinking the cat carrier was for the goats, right? They're the size of cats, right? She brought it around to get a chicken and I didn't think much about it at the moment. And she come around and all of a sudden she screamed. Her husband jumped over the side of the truck and come around to the side, and I'm looking at her like, what in the world, yankee was standing there and Yankee stood about, I don't know, 28 30 inches tall or so, and those beetle brows and everything. She just thought he was just a monster and she goes. What am I supposed to do with those? And I was like, Hey lady, you said you wanted one, she decided she wanted one, and so I found her the smallest one. I figured that was the only fair thing to do. I tried to pick her out like the runt one. Luckily, the cat carrier opened from the top because she wanted the rooster in the cat carrier. Oh, she was determined. Oh, no. So we put him in the top and I held him down and closed the top of the cat carrier. And then I picked it up and looked at him and his face was up against the, no, why are you doing this to me? I was like, sorry dude, here you go. Put the goat in here. What did I do? And then they just folded the dog cage back down and they left with goats in their laps and a rooster flattened down against the carrier. Oh my. Have to goats in the cage. Yeah. I was like, you've got this backwards. My chickens are bigger than my goats. Wow. All right. Gina, it's been nice having you again. Yep. Oh, always nice to visit with you guys. All right. Talk to you soon. All right. Thank you.